The Social Life

of
Infrastructure
Week 2 – Infrastructure and technology
Questions
• What are the intellectual precursors of STS work on infrastructures?
• What arguments were these predecessors making? What ideas were they
critiquing?
• How does the notion of infrastructure build on these and what makes it a useful
additional to our arsenal?
Agenda

1. Infrastructural predecessors: social studies of technology

2. Group discussion leadership
3. Delineating infrastructures
Infrastructural
predecessors
LTS & ANT
‘Technological determinism’

“Technologies change, either because of

scientific advance or following a logic of
their own; and they then have effects on
society” (MacKenzie & Wajcman 1999: 1)

A technology – simply via its

material properties – has a
discrete (and possibly inevitable)
causal impact on society
‘Technological determinism’
“Technologies change, either because of
scientific advance or following a logic of
their own; and they then have effects on
society” (MacKenzie & Wajcman 1999: 1)

A technology – simply via its

material properties – has a
discrete (and possibly inevitable)
causal impact on society

•Reject ‘hard’ technological determinism

•But accept ‘soft’ technological
determinism
• Technologies have social effects, but
they are complex and contingent.
•Not technologies, but ‘large technical systems’ that
include physical artifacts, organisations, scientific
elements, legislation, natural resources.
•Require harmonization, often achieved through
standardization, bureaucracy, routinization, deskilling.
Think back to the infrastructure
you brought in last week. What
would be a technological
determinist view on this
infrastructure’s emergence or
impact? How would viewing it as a
‘large technical system’ change
how you studied it?
Similarities to LTS

Develops around the same time (1970-80s).

Debunks technological determinist analyses.
Analytical objects of concern are heterogeneous
networks (or ‘assemblages’), of humans & non-
humans, not isolated, material technologies.
Differences with LTS

Not just about technology. A general sociomaterial

approach to analysing production of
‘heterogeneous assemblages’ or ‘agencements’

Symmetrical analysis that does not

distinguish between capacities of
humans and things (‘actants’).

Spans micro to macro scales

People can ‘translate’ or ‘delegate’ the work of

enacting a ‘program of action’ to nonhuman
actants.
• But also: ‘antiprograms.’
“Every time you want to know what a
nonhuman does, simply imagine what
other humans or other nonhumans
would have to do were this character not
present” (155).

“The distinctions between humans and

nonhumans, embodied or disembodied
skills, impersonation or ‘machination,’
are less interesting that the complete
chain along which competences and
actions are distributed” (165).
“Students of technology are never
faced with people on the one hand
and things on the other, they are
faced with programs of action,
sections of which are endowed to
parts of humans, while other
sections are entrusted to parts of
nonhumans … This is the only thing
they can observe: how a
negotiation to associate dissident
elements requires more and more
elements to be tied together and
more and more shifts to other
matters” (Latour 1992: 174-175)
Take-aways (LTS & ANT)
Technological determinism is inadequate because it studies technologies in isolation,
rather than as ‘large technical systems,’ ‘assemblages,’ ‘sociomaterial hybrids,’
‘ecologies,’ etc.

Technologies develop and operate within macro-level environments – economics,

culture, law, government – that must align and support, or at least not block or conflict
with, each other (Hughes).

Technologies develop and operate within and as part of a network full of actants.
Through techno-political struggles these actants become ‘aligned’ or ‘enrolled’ in the
pursuit of certain ‘programs’ and ‘antiprograms.’ These networks span the micro and
macro in scale (Latour).
Summative coursework
• Discussion leadership (10%) – Once during the term, you will lead a 10-minute
small-group discussion of the week’s readings. This has two components:
1) Before class you will write and share with the group a 500-word blurb about
one or more of the week’s readings. This will begin with a quote from one of
this week’s readings (not included in the word count) and then discuss why you
think it is important, interesting, or thought-provoking in the context of the
week’s readings. At the end of your blurb, pose one or two (maximum)
questions related to the quote, the blurb, or the week’s readings more
generally that you wish to discuss in your group.
2) In class, you will lead your group’s discussion of your question(s).
You will be graded solely on the written portion.
Discussion leadership
• Before class you will write and share with the group on Moodle a 500-word
blurb about one or more of the week’s readings. This should begin with a
quote from one of this week’s readings (not included in the word count) and
then discuss why you think it is important, interesting, or thought-provoking in
the context of the week’s readings. At the end of your blurb, pose one or two
questions related to the quote, the blurb, or the week’s readings more
generally that you wish to discuss in your group.
• Do not exceed 500 words or ask more than two questions. If you do,
this will affect your mark.
• You can find the link to post the blurb to your Table under the appropriate
week on the course Moodle page. Please post the blurb by 6pm on
Monday, the day before class.
• You will be graded solely on this written portion. It will count for 10%
of your final course grade.
Discussion leadershiop
• In class, you will lead a 10-minute small-group discussion of your blurb and question(s).
• You can assume that everyone has read and thought a bit about your blurb. Still, you
should begin by briefly revisiting your quote and what you wrote in the body of the
blurb. When you do this, don’t repeat your blurb word for word – rather, speak about the
same ideas using fresh words.
• After this initial refresh of your blurb, describe to your group how that led you to arrive
at your question(s).
• At this point, you open up the discussion to the rest of the table. At this point, this is
meant to be an open discussion. Anyone who wants to speak should join in at the
moment. The discussion leader’s job at this point is to keep the discussion going –
drawing connections, posing clarifying or follow-up questions, or introducing related
topics as needed. Sometimes keeping the conversation going will be very easy; other
times it might be harder, and require expressing ideas you are not totally confident
about, purely as an attempt to keep discussion moving. Leading discussion doesn’t
require to know more than everyone else, you just have to be prepared and
keep the ball rolling.
Note for participants
• Your role in this process is not passive! Your tablemate who is presenting is
relying on you to help power the discussion, just like you will rely on them, in
turn.
• This means you also should prepare for the discussion. Read their blurb on
Moodle and really give it thought for a few minutes. Did a similar sort of quote
stand out to you? Did the readings prompt a similar question for you? Does
their blurb spark other, related, ideas in your mind? Do you think you have an
answer to their question? Come to class ready with those responses.
• Remember the ‘exquisite corpse’ we drew in Week 1? A group discussion is a
little like that. The presenters are drawing the first few lines of a picture – now
you need to pick up the pen and contribute to the drawing, too!
Delineating infrastructures
Star (1999)
Aspects of infrastructures appear as “lists of
number and technical specifications” – “boring
things.” Yet they open onto much more.
“The ecology of the high-tech workplace, home
or school is profoundly impacted by the
relatively unstudied infrastructure that
permeates all its functions. Study a city and
neglect its sewers and power supplies and you
miss essential aspects of distributed justice and
planning power. Study an information system
and neglect is standards, wires, and settings,
and you miss equally essential aspects of
aesthetics, justice and change” (Star 1999:
379).
Star (1999) – Nine features of
infrastructure
1) Embeddedness
2) Transparency
3) Reach or scope
4) Learned as part of membership
5) Links with conventions of practice
6) Embodiment of standards
7) Built on an installed base
8) Becomes visible upon breakdown
9) Is fixed in modular increments, not all at once or globally
“The key question is not
whether a problem is a “social”
problem or a “technical” one.
That is putting it the wrong way
around. The question is whether
we choose, for any given
problem, a primarily social or a
technical solution, or some
combination. It is the
distribution of solutions that is
of concern as the object of
study and as a series of
elements that support
infrastructure in different ways
at different moments” (Bowker,
et al. 2010, p. 102).
‘Tricks of the trade’ – these are
analytical strategies used in
‘infrastructural inversion’ (Star 1999).

• Identifying master narratives and

‘others’;
• Surfacing invisible work;
• Highlighting paradoxes of
infrastructure.
Take-aways (Star)
Builds on earlier approaches to technologies as sociomaterial hybrids.

Focuses more on backgrounded ‘boring things.’

Infrastructures not only bring together the technical and social, but the global and
local.

Infrastructural inversion involves making the familiar strange: Identifying master

narratives and ‘others’; Surfacing invisible work; Highlighting paradoxes of
infrastructure.
Questions
• What are the intellectual precursors of STS work on infrastructures?
• Science and technology studies (STS), including ‘large technical systems’ (Hughes) and ‘actor-
network theory’ (Latour)
Questions
• What are the intellectual precursors of STS work on infrastructures?
• Science and technology studies (STS), including ‘large technical systems’ (Hughes) and ‘actor-
network theory’ (Latour)
• What arguments were these predecessors making? What ideas were they
critiquing?
• Arguing against ‘hard’ technological determinism.
• Arguing for a constitutive entanglement of material and broadly social factors (e.g.,
economic, organisational, cultural, political, interpersonal) in the creation of technologies.
• Arguing for a ‘soft’ technological determinism that investigates the impact of technologies on
social settings.
Questions
• What are the intellectual precursors of STS work on infrastructures?
• Science and technology studies (STS), including ‘large technical systems’ (Hughes) and ‘actor-
network theory’ (Latour)
• What arguments were these predecessors making? What ideas were they critiquing?
• Arguing against ‘hard’ technological determinism.
• Arguing for a constitutive entanglement of material and broadly social factors (e.g., economic,
organisational, cultural, political, interpersonal) in the creation of technologies.
• Arguing for a ‘soft’ technological determinism that investigates the impact of technologies on
social settings.
• How does the notion of infrastructure build on these and what makes it a useful
additional to our arsenal?
• Looks at deeply situated, massively scaled networks, coordinated via ‘boring things’ like lists and
standards that enable local action.
You should now be able to…
• Summarise the tenets of technological determinism and critique
them using the concept of sociomaterial hybridity.
• Define key actor-network theory concepts (techno-politics,
programs / anti-programs, assemblage, actant, translation) in
your own words, give examples, and articulate why Latour
believes they are necessary.
• Define Star’s nine features of infrastructure in your own words
and give examples.