Översikt
- Datum:Startar 4 juni 2025, 13:15Slutar 4 juni 2025, 17:00
- Plats:Vasa A, Vera Sandbergs allé 8
- Opponent:Professor Jon Agar, Dept. of Science & Technology Studies, University College London, UK
- AvhandlingLäs avhandlingen (Öppnas i ny flik)
The era of mainframe computers laid the foundation for the digitalisation of Sweden. This thesis explores Swedish computing during the period 1955–1975 by analysing how computing work was conducted, organised, and conceptualised at two data processing centres, that were based on IBM mainframes and belonged to the Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOA). The formation and consolidation of scientific computing, with its strong relationship to military research, represented a process that occurred on multiple levels: from political visions of neutrality and modernity to the daily organisation of punched cards, paper result lists, and personnel. The focus on computing work enables analysing various computing tasks, ranging from scientific labour to systems programming, as well as the gendered and class-dependent hierarchies separating these different tasks and the political visions that conditioned them. I combine analyses of archival documents relating to the daily administration and overall regulations of these centres with oral history and studies of media coverage.
My analysis of overarching political goals through contingent work routines shows how the Cold War political landscape in Sweden enabled computing work practices and professions to form. I argue that the prioritisation of military research in the mainframe era resulted in complex data processing centres dominated by data flows in constant need of organisation. Computing work at FOA was organised according to principles of rationality, automation, and abstraction, which in turn shaped the rise of scientific computing in Sweden. By tracing computing work in Sweden, the thesis expands the emerging field of work-oriented computing history, which has thus far primarily focused on the US and the UK. Moving beyond histories of individual computing policies and domestic computer industries, while broadening the scope of what constitutes computing work, this thesis offers new ways of understanding Swedish computing history.
My analysis of overarching political goals through contingent work routines shows how the Cold War political landscape in Sweden enabled computing work practices and professions to form. I argue that the prioritisation of military research in the mainframe era resulted in complex data processing centres dominated by data flows in constant need of organisation. Computing work at FOA was organised according to principles of rationality, automation, and abstraction, which in turn shaped the rise of scientific computing in Sweden. By tracing computing work in Sweden, the thesis expands the emerging field of work-oriented computing history, which has thus far primarily focused on the US and the UK. Moving beyond histories of individual computing policies and domestic computer industries, while broadening the scope of what constitutes computing work, this thesis offers new ways of understanding Swedish computing history.
