Science, Technology, &Human Values, Ahead of Print.
This article explores the idea that technologies may be considered shapeshifting as they move between and are domesticated in different social worlds. We employ a material-semiotic approach with a domestication and social worlds framework to study the case of Trampe, a bicycle lift built in Trondheim, Norway, in 1993. The study is based on interviews, observation, documents, and news media analysis. We show how the lift shifted shape: although originally intended as bicycling infrastructure, it became domesticated as a tourist attraction in the social world of tourists, and a symbol of the city’s efforts to stimulate cycling in the social world of the local government. Trampe has remained the only bike lift in the world and would have been closed long ago due to maintenance costs, but its shapeshifting qualities have prolonged its sociotechnical life after its functional abilities were no longer sufficient. Our study suggests that more attention should be paid to these shapeshifting dynamics when analyzing technologies and their sociotechnical lives. Combining domestication theory with a social worlds perspective helps identify these shapeshifting features.