NewWorkTech Publications
This page provides access to a collection of research materials from the NewWorkTech project, including papers, scientific publications, and data sets.
Deliverable D1.1: Office work dataset
D1.1: Office Work Dataset
This document presents the metadata and codebook for NewWorkTech Work Package 1 (WP1), outlining the scope, theoretical framework, and methodological approach guiding data collection and analysis.
WP1 investigates real-world white-collar work practices of people with disabilities across multiple European countries, drawing on ongoing ethnographic fieldwork conducted by researchers from the University of Copenhagen and Tampere University. The deliverable details the types of data collected, the accessibility-focused research design, and the analytical categories used to organise the corpus, with the overarching aim of understanding workplace practices, technological mediation, and structural barriers affecting participation, self-determination, and well-being.
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Deliverable D2.1: Manual work dataset
D2.1: Manual Work Dataset
In this deliverable, D2.1, we present the metadata and codebook for Work Package 2 (WP2).1 The metadata consists of a descriptive overview of the data collected up to the date of this deliverable by researchers affiliated with Tampere University (TAU) and the University of Copenhagen (UCPH). Three researchers have collected video and audio data as well as field notes and interviews on manual work in Italy, Finland and Germany. In the following, we provide an overview of the theoretical framework and the categorisation we employ to organise data collection and to prepare the corpus for data analysis.
In WP2 of the NewWorkTech project, we explore manual work by 1) wheelchair users (or participants with a physical/motorial disability); 2) participants who are neurodivergent; 3) people with a learning or intellectual disability. People with learning or intellectual disabilities form a relevant group: while they may not be able to do the same kind of knowledge office work as other people in general, they may have unique skills that make them competent in kinds of knowledge work (e.g., Griffiths et al., 2024). In WP2, we focus on exploring work-related practices in performing manual (on-site) work tasks and social encounters at the workplace. Manual work in this WP means blue-collar work, in which on-site work is a prerequisite. Workplaces under study include the hospitality, health and social sectors, logistics, manufacturing, shops or stores, and beauty and cultural industries.
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Deliverable D3.1: Report on existing research & revision of key concepts
D3.1: Report on existing research and revision of key concepts
This review explores theoretical and methodological approaches to human–technology interaction, with a particular emphasis on how technology is conceptualized across disciplines. The review examines the semantic scope of the concept of technology and the ways in which it is embedded – explicitly or implicitly – in scholarly frameworks. The analysis is guided by the theoretical needs of the NewWorkTech project, which prioritizes approaches that illuminate the bidirectional nature of human-technology interaction: humans shape technologies, and technologies, in turn, shape human behaviour.
One of the main focus areas is distributed cognition and the 4E cognition framework (embodied, embedded, extended, and enacted cognition). These approaches are critically examined for their treatment of technology, revealing significant variation in scope, analytical scale, and disciplinary orientation. The review also engages with affordance theory, particularly in design contexts, to assess how technologies communicate action possibilities and constraints to users.
Philosophical perspectives, including postphenomenology and actor-network theory, are reviewed to address the experiential and relational dimensions of technological mediation. These frameworks offer insights into how technologies co-constitute human subjectivity and world-disclosure, moving beyond instrumentalist and externalist views.
Finally, the review examines models of disability in relation to technology, highlighting how different paradigms – medical, social, cultural, and ecological – shape understandings of technological agency and accessibility.
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