Responsibility flow
We track where maintenance debt stalls and how to surface it before harm compounds.
Research agenda
We study how care-centered systems stay accountable.
Ethotechnics studies how accountability, maintenance, and care stay aligned inside sociotechnical systems.
Protected pauses
We document the rituals and governance that let teams refuse or slow harmful launches.
Honest safeguards
We test the safeguards that keep care-critical systems accountable after they ship.
Maintenance
Map burdens early.
Accountability
Share rituals that spread care.
Safeguards
Test protections after launch.
Each study centers the staff holding the pager, pairing qualitative interviews with operational diagnostics and policy reviews.
operational ethnography
maintenance diagnostics
accountability drills
What we're studying
Research questions guiding our current work.
We investigate how organizations surface maintenance debt, center people affected by instability, and negotiate the governance that keeps care-centered systems accountable.
Read more about why these lines of inquiry matter
Each question tracks how responsibility moves—or gets stuck—across operations, policy, and tooling. Expanding the context lets partners see where their own accountability rituals and maintenance practices align with or diverge from what we’re learning.
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Mapping maintenance debt
How do care-critical teams spot infrastructure gaps early and make maintenance visible to leadership before the load becomes unsustainable?
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Power and accountability rituals
What governance patterns help distribute decision-making so refusal, pause, and repair are protected actions instead of personal risks?
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Sociotechnical safeguards
Where do technical tools, documentation, and policy intersect to uphold human judgment without offloading harm onto frontline teams?
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Guidance from language models
How could large language models host interactive Q&A, ethical scenario drills, and facilitation prompts that lower barriers to entry while keeping users continually supported?
Our methods
We stay close to lived experience and operational data.
Each project pairs qualitative interviews with system diagnostics to understand how people actually keep services stable.
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Co-design research with teams
We shape scopes alongside the people holding care work so the study reflects real constraints, not outsider assumptions.
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Trace accountability across systems
We map decision pathways, maintenance rituals, and escalation policies to surface where responsibility concentrates.
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Return findings as shared tools
We package learnings into playbooks, policy templates, and training so partners can immediately apply what we discover together.
Share your perspective
Bring your questions, stories, and care practices.
We partner with public interest technologists, mutual aid organizers, and institutional leaders who want to transform how accountability shows up in their systems.
Read more about collaboration options
Whether you need rapid research sprints or longer residencies, we tailor engagements so frontline experiences and operational diagnostics stay connected. Sharing your context helps us pair the right methods and facilitation to keep your accountability goals moving.
Ways to engage
- Participate in qualitative interviews or maintenance mapping sessions.
- Co-develop prototypes that redistribute responsibility.
- Host briefings to bring findings to your teams and partners.
Start a collaboration
Help shape the next phase of research.
Share the systems you steward and the questions you want answered. We’ll follow up with ways to participate.
Stay connected
Keep Ethotechnics research in your inbox.
Receive study invitations, interim findings, and practice notes from the field.