Crafting connections – practices of infrastructuring: An ethnographic study of developing a village electricity grid in Bangladesh

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Crafting connections – practices of infrastructuring

An ethnographic study of developing a village electricity grid in Bangladesh

Hanne Cecilie Geirbo

Thesis submitted for the degree of Ph.D.

Department of Informatics

Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences University of Oslo

March 2017

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© Hanne Cecilie Geirbo, 2017

Series of dissertations submitted to the

Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of Oslo No. 1826

ISSN 1501-7710

reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission.

Cover: Hanne Baadsgaard Utigard.

Print production: Reprosentralen, University of Oslo.

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In memory of Wilhelm A. Wiig

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Abstract

This thesis is an empirical and theoretical exploration of the making of an

infrastructure. Through posing the research question “What does infrastructuring as practice entail?” it contributes to debates about infrastructure that cut across the research domains Science and Technology Studies (STS), anthropology of

infrastructure, Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW), Information Systems (IS), and urban studies. The empirical basis for this exploration is an ethnographic study of the piloting of a solar electricity infrastructure in a

Bangladeshi village. This pilot project was conducted by the University of Oslo and a Bangladeshi telecom company I will call ‘Deshi Phone.' A solar-powered mobile tower constituted the hub of a village electricity grid that provided electric lighting in 136 households and powered a computer access point.

The thesis is based on ‘observant participation’ (McNeill and StClair, 2009;

Mosse, 2013, 2005), an interventionist ethnographic approach which implies gaining performative knowledge of the practices that are being studied while simultaneously engaging in analytical reflection about these practices. The thesis provides empirical descriptions of the practical and relational work of developing an infrastructure and theoretical discussions about how infrastructures are

practically constituted. I use the verb construction ‘infrastructuring’ to denote the work of making infrastructures happen, and understand infrastructuring as the crafting of connections between people, things, and places with the purpose of making infrastructure ‘ready-to-hand’ (Heidegger, 1962).

The thesis has a particular focus on the role of representational practices in infrastructuring. Representational practices, such as the use of sketches, allegories, and monitoring systems, facilitate some ways of knowing an emerging

infrastructure and obstruct other ways of knowing. Hence, attending to

representational practices is necessary for engaging in ontological politics, in the sense of reflecting on the world-shaping capacities of the infrastructures we enact and make deliberate choices in this regard.

I will discuss the role of representational practices in how the project team related to the natural and constructed environment of the emerging electricity

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infrastructure. Sketches used in the planning, as well as monitoring systems used for allocating resources to the project, did not facilitate taking the environment as a dynamic force into consideration. The practices of infrastructuring did, on the other hand, entail interacting with the environment in the form of seasonal changes in weather, a fluctuating water level, silty soil, politically induced roadblocks, local conventions of house construction, etc., as forces that pushed back into the project team’s interventions and compelled the team to engage with them as the infrastructuring unfolded.

I will conclude the thesis by engaging the Bangla terms kacha (soft or provisional) and pakka (solid or permanent) to discuss how the imaginary of a fluctuating world can inspire the crafting of flexible connections that, rather than resisting environmental fluctuations, might accommodate and even invite this fundamental property of the world.

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Acknowledgements

In August 2010, I started as a Ph.D. fellow at the Department of Informatics.

While working in the telecom industry, I had discovered that technology research was an intriguing field for a social anthropologist. When I heard that the

Department of Informatics at the University of Oslo had a long tradition of interventionist technology research combined with a welcoming attitude to

different disciplinary backgrounds, I applied for a Ph.D. position. At this time, the department had just initiated a pilot project that not only included mobile

technology but also took place in Bangladesh, where I had previously lived. Soon after, I found myself ready to start a new adventure.

Doing my Ph.D. as a social anthropologist in an informatics department has been challenging, at times frustrating, but above all very rewarding. Encounters with different approaches to research have compelled me to reflect on my

epistemological commitments and to learn how to articulate them. Doing a Ph.D.

in a community with a different academic tradition requires that one is willing to explore the new and be changed by it. In this process, I have gone from proposing a conventional anthropological study in my initial research proposal to being humorously labeled as "more religious than the Pope" in my efforts to embrace Information Systems (IS) theory, to discovering Science and Technology Studies (STS) literature.

Many people have supported me in the process of doing my Ph.D. I will thank my supervisor Kristin Braa for giving me the opportunity to participate in an immensely interesting as well as challenging pilot project and for having confidence in my ability to write a thesis based on it. I am grateful to my

supervisor Margunn Aanestad for helping me sort out my thoughts, asking critical questions, and guiding me in the vast body of literature spanning IS, STS, and CSCW. I will thank my third supervisor Vidar Hepsø for encouraging me to focus on doing a good fieldwork in the beginning and leave the theoretical worries for later. I will also thank Vidar for listening and giving me good advice in a tricky situation during fieldwork.

I am grateful to everyone who has read and commented on chapter drafts. I will in particular mention Christian Sørhaug for invaluable comments and

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encouragement during the last stage, and also Rachel Douglas-Jones, Laura Watts, Antonie L. Kræmer, Vebjørn Bakken, Miria Grisot, Jo Herstad, Tone Bratteteig, Maja van der Velden, Mikael Valen-Sendstad, Abu (Mishu) Ahasan, and Hilde Reinertsen. Thanks to Marianne and Antonie Kræmer for drawing a map.

The fieldwork that this thesis is based on would not have been possible without the hospitality and patience of people in the village I will call "Haorbari."

I am in particular grateful to "Bidyut,” whose goodwill and help has been crucial.

I will thank colleagues in the "Green Bangla project," those from "Deshi Phone"

and those from the University of Oslo, for companionship and support. Thanks to Nithi Kumar for sharing your flat and your company with me for several months in 2012. Thanks to Gjermund and Tanja Lia for inviting me into your cozy home in 2013. Many people in Bangladesh have contributed to making my stays in Bangladesh productive and enjoyable. Some of them are Mishu Ahasan, Arild Klokkerhaug and Jana Ferdous, Imteaz Mannan, Shaheen Akter, the Malik family, Pablo Amos Halder, Ghazi Hassan Mahtab, and the Dhaka Mixed Hash.

As a Ph.D. fellow in the IS group, I have appreciated the culture of sharing work in progress, providing constructive criticism and helping each other out in general. I will thank the faculty for encouragement and help. Thanks to all my fellow Ph.D. students for support and good times, in particular, Rangarirai Matavire, Terje Aksel Sanner, Anne Asmyr Thorseng, and Anna Zaytseva

Andreyevna. As part of the Design group, I find it greatly inspiring to be part of a creative community consisting of faculty, Ph.D. fellows, and master students. I will thank Tone Bratteteig and the rest of the group for the generous support in the last stage of doing my Ph.D. A special thanks goes to Guri, my office-mate, for company and inspiring conversations.

My three months as a visiting Ph.D. fellow at the IT University of

Copenhagen has been immensely important for my ability to write this text. The Technologies in Practice (TiP) group included me in weekly seminars, Ph.D.

colloquiums, lunch discussions, and social activities. A special thanks go to Brit Ross Winthereik for saying yes when I asked if I could visit, Laura Watts for enthusiastic reading and thoughtful recommendations for how to improve, and Rachel Douglas-Jones for being inspiring and fun company.

I have received several stipends to support fieldwork and writing. Thanks to Oslo Renewable Energy and Environment Cluster (OREEC) for financing a fieldtrip to India in 2011 to visit village energy projects initiated by SCATEC

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Solar. Thanks to the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Science, UiO, for the Kristine Bonnevie-stipend that supported my stay at the IT University of

Copenhagen. Thanks to Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) for the SUPRA- stipend that gave me two inspiring and productive weeks at the institute in

Copenhagen. Thanks also to NORREN for accepting me for the summer school in renewable energy in 2012.

Several research groups and centers at the University of Oslo have been important for my writing process. UiO:Energy has supported me in many ways.

Organizing the MILEN colloquium is one of them. There I met the “energy ladies” Kirsten Ulsrud, Karina Standal, and Hilde Reinertsen, who have kept meeting and discussing solar energy research with each other. The Centre for Development and the Environment (SUM) has provided an arena for getting feedback on work in progress, participating in seminars and courses, and not least, for participating in the “tomato”-sessions. The regular ‘pomodoro-method’

writing sessions with Maren Aase, Maren Bjune, Hilde Reinertsen, and Iselin Stensdal have made the process of writing this thesis much less lonely and much more enjoyable than it otherwise would have been. Participating in the South Asia symposiums, with its lively discussions of paper drafts accompanied by wine and snacks, has been enjoyable as well as inspiring.

My friends have been a source of endless encouragement, support, and opportunities for relaxing and thinking about something else. They are too many to mention individually, but you know who you are. Last, but not least, my family has been, as always, immensely important in this process. When I started my Ph.D. six years ago, my nephew Karl August was born. Now he has started school and is the big brother of Johanne and Tobias. I will thank my brother Thorbjørn and my sister-in-law Karoline for your love. The unwavering support and care from my cousin Karianne mean very much to me. I will also thank the rest of my family for being there for me and for being such enjoyable company. Lastly, I will thank my parents Tore and Ellen Hanne for showing me the joy of creating and the value of putting your heart into what you make, whether it is a piece of handicraft, a stone wall, or a text.

This thesis is dedicated to the memory of my uncle Wilhelm, who in 2004 invited me to come and live with him in Bangladesh and through this changed the course of my life.

Oslo, 1^st March 2017

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I will use Bangla words written in italics when there are no adequate English translations and the Bangla word is commonly used to denote the phenomenon in English. An example is hartal, which is a form of general strike that involves shutdown of transport systems and business. I will add a Bangla word in parenthesis after an English word when specification of the Bangla word is important for a detailed understanding of what I am referring to, e.g., “disrepute (durnam).” I will use an Anglicized plural version of Bangla nouns (e.g., murtis) in this text instead of using the correct plural suffix –gulo.

Glossary

Bebsha Business

Bidesh/bideshi Abroad/from abroad

Chakri Salaried, skilled employment (as opposed to manual labor)

Durnam Disrepute

Durga Puja Major Hindu festival (in September/October)

Hati hamlet in a village (used in the village that hosted the pilot

project instead of para, which is the common word for village hamlet in Bangladesh)

Hartal general strike. In today’s Bangladesh, hartals paralyze

traffic and close down offices. The political opposition use hartals to protest decisions and express dissatisfaction, and as retaliation for oppression and abuse performed by the government.

Kacha Soft or provisional (when used about constructions)

Kaj Manual labor (as opposed to salaried, skilled employment)

Lathi Bamboo sticks commonly used in fights

Lojja Shame

Murti Statue or image of Hindu god

Pakka Solid or permanent (when used about a construction)

Pohela Boishakh Bengali New Year

Shalish Informal village tribunal

Shalwar kameez Outfit consisting of loose pants with a long shirt over

Shomman Respect

Taka The Bangladeshi currency (BDT)

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List of abbreviations

CEO Chief Executive Officer

CFL Compact Fluorescent Lamp (low-energy light bulb) CSCW Computer Supported Collaborative Work

CSR Corporate Social Responsibility CTO Chief Technology Officer

EDGE Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution (a pre-3G radio technology)

GSMA GSM Association. The Association for mobile operators using the GSM protocol.

HCI Humna-Computer Interaction

ICT Information and Communication Technology

IS Information Systems

NGO Non-governmental Organization STS Science and Technology Studies

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Chapter 1. Introduction

We live our lives entangled with infrastructures. A multitude of infrastructures, from electricity grids to railways and digital information systems, enable us to go about our daily life at home and at work. As long as these infrastructures function, we usually don’t pay attention to them. Yet, infrastructures have profound

implications for how we live our lives: Transport infrastructures shape our daily trajectories from home to work, electricity infrastructure creates the ambiance of our homes, and digital information infrastructures enable and restrict our

movement across borders. Infrastructures connect people, things, and places. In this thesis, I will explore what the crafting of such connections entails. I will do this based on an ethnographic study of the piloting of a solar electricity

infrastructure in a Bangladeshi village I will call Haorbari. This project, which I will call ‘the Green Bangla project,' was conducted by the University of Oslo and a Bangladeshi telecom company I will call ‘Deshi Phone.' A solar-powered mobile tower constituted the hub of a mini-grid that provided electric lighting in 136 households and powered a computer, scanner, printer, and mobile charging station available to the inhabitants of Haorbari.

Infrastructures attract the interest of researchers across disciplines. I have written my thesis in a department with a legacy in the research domains

Information Systems (IS), and Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW).

Within this setting, I have related to a stream of research that is concerned with the design of interconnected information systems, conceptualized as information infrastructures (Ciborra et al., 2000; Hanseth and Ciborra, 2007). Historians of technology represent another traditional domain of infrastructure studies (see for instance Hughes 1993; Fischer 1994; Nye 1994). They have done comparative studies of how infrastructures, conceptualized as large technical systems, emerge and become stabilized (Hughes, 1987; Summerton, 1994). Urban studies scholars have explored the role of infrastructures for the urban condition (Graham and Marvin, 2001; Graham and Thrift, 2007). Recently, attention to infrastructure has surged in social science and the humanities, such as Science and Technology Studies (STS) and anthropology (Blok et al., 2016; Howe et al., 2015; Larkin, 2013). In these disciplines, an important concern is how infrastructures are

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simultaneously being shaped by humans and shaping the conditions for society.

This thesis is informed by humanities- and social science perspectives as well as by design-oriented perspectives. I seek to contribute to current debates about infrastructure that cut across STS, anthropology of infrastructure, CSCW, IS, and urban studies.

A core insight of infrastructure studies is that infrastructures emerge in processes characterized by contingency. Any infrastructure is built on the top of existing systems and practices that influence the new that is introduced (Bowker and Star, 2000; Ciborra et al., 2000; Jackson et al., 2007). Many studies analyze such processes at a structural level, seeking to elicit the organizational, political, or historical dynamics of how infrastructures emerge. Fewer studies have focused on the practices by which they come into being. This thesis will provide detailed empirical descriptions of the practical and relational work of developing an infrastructure.

To highlight the practices involved in the emergence of an infrastructure, I use the verb ‘infrastructuring.' Using conventional or constructed verb-forms of nouns is an analytical measure that shifts the attention from structures to

processes. I will use ‘infrastructuring’ to denote the work of making infrastructure happen and through this explore how infrastructures are practically constituted.

I have done participant observation as a member of the Green Bangla project between July 2010 and January 2015. With my combined role as project member and researcher, I have entered a tradition of interventionist research in

Scandinavian design-oriented technology studies (Bjerknes and Bratteteig, 1995;

Braa et al., 2004). I have drawn on my background in social anthropology to practice reflexivity in the field. My position as a reflexive insider has enabled me to experience practices of infrastructuring in the role of practitioner, and to reflect on these practices as a scholar.

My thesis is framed by the research question “what does infrastructuring as practice entail?” I will understand infrastructuring as the crafting of connections between people, things, and places, with the purpose of establishing, maintaining, and restoring infrastructure to a state of ready-to-hand (Heidegger, 1962), in the sense of invisibly supporting our tasks. I will explore the various practices that those involved in the Green Bangla project team employed in the effort of crafting connections in Haorbari. I will pay particular attention to the role of

representational practices in infrastructuring. Representations, such as sketches,

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allegories, and monitoring systems, were used to make sense of the heterogeneous and complex structures and practices of the emerging infrastructure. I will explore how such representations facilitate some ways of knowing an emerging

infrastructure and obstruct others, and discuss the implications of this. Through this, I will challenge commonsense assumptions that the negligence of important social and material challenges in interventionist community projects is necessarily attributed to the lack of information about such issues.

By attending to practices of infrastructuring, I have been sensitized to the role of the natural and constructed environment in the emergence of an infrastructure. I will argue that while the environment is commonly conceptualized as a setting or context for infrastructure development, it pushes back into planned interventions and is part of the shaping of infrastructures. I will conclude the thesis by engaging the Bangla terms kacha (soft or provisional) and pakka (solid or permanent) to explore how we might let infrastructuring be guided by an imaginary of a

fluctuating world. I will argue that this can aid us in crafting flexible connections that, rather than resisting environmental fluctuations, might accommodate and even invite this fundamental property of the world.

The world-‐shaping capacities of infrastructure

Most people live their lives entangled in infrastructures of various kinds. Some infrastructures we engage consciously with, for instance, when we buy a ticket for the subway or fill out our tax returns. Other infrastructures we don't pay attention to even if they are right in front of our noses. This can be the plumbing

infrastructure that enables us to shower in the morning or the mobile network infrastructure that allows us to read a newspaper on the mobile while commuting to work. Whether we know they are there or not, infrastructures tend to be

invisible to us as we go about our daily routines. Only when they cease to work we notice them (Bowker and Star, 2000; Star and Ruhleder, 1996). We don't think about the plumbing before we have the hair full of shampoo and there is no water in the shower. We don't consider the mobile network infrastructure there is no coverage. Still, if we are encouraged to reflect on the role of infrastructures in our lives, what probably comes to our minds first is how infrastructures like plumbing, the internet, or public transport systems support us as we do our daily tasks.

However, not only do infrastructures facilitate the various practices our lives consist of, but they also fundamentally shape our living. Infrastructures have world-shaping implications (see Jensen and Winthereik, 2013, p. 11, see also

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Edwards, 2003).

To understand how infrastructures have world-shaping implications, we need to consider how human beings are characterized by a propensity to classify

(Bowker and Star, 2000, pp. 1–32). Kinship systems serve the universal human need of classifying our fellow community members in marriageable and non- marriageable categories (Roger M. Keesing, 1975). We classify plants in family groups so we can learn to monitor and manage their growth. Geoffrey Bowker and Susan Leigh Star are central scholars in a school of thought that conceptualize infrastructures as classification systems. By ‘classification system’, they

understand “a set of boxes (metaphorical or literal) into which things can be put to then do some work – bureaucratic or knowledge production” (Bowker and Star, 2000, p. 10). Like other classification systems, infrastructures make daunting complexity manageable by lumping things and people together in categories and establish connections between them. Infrastructures of medicine, such as the International Classification of Diseases, assign a limited number of diagnoses to the universe of individual experiences of illness. Infrastructures of governance sort complex religious, racial, and sexual identities into a limited number of mutually exclusive categories. Infrastructures of work break processes of production and care up into sequenced tasks (Bowker and Star, 2000). Because they constitute classification systems that we live and work by, infrastructures are world-shaping.

In addition to classification, Bowker and Star highlight standardization as a core aspect of infrastructures. A standard is a set of agreed-upon rules for the production of objects. It has temporal reach and persists over time. Standards are deployed to make things work together over distance and across differences of various sorts (Bowker and Star, 2000, pp. 13–14). For instance, standards make it possible to assemble a solar electricity grid from components that are produced in difference places. Because standards persist over time, the owner of the grid can safely assume that it will be possible to find spare parts that fit in the grid when the original parts are worn out.

By means of classification and standardization, infrastructures not only facilitate us in our daily business, they simultaneously constitute the boundaries we can live our lives comfortably within. The world-shaping capacities of

infrastructure are, however, of political and ethical consequence. Bowker and Star draw the attention to ambiguous cases and residual categories. They are concerned

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with what happens to those who do not fit any category or perhaps span several (Bowker and Star, 2000). Order-making necessarily produces disorder (Berg and Timmermans, 2000). As Mary Douglas formulated it in her classic study of classification practices: “dirt is matter out of place” (Douglas, 1966, p. 36). Being rendered messy, “other,” or invisible to the sanctioned order can cause personal tragedies and lifelong struggles (Bowker and Star, 2000).

In the 1980's, the anthropologist Bryan Pfaffenberger drew on Marxism to argue that technology is humanized nature. He argued that technology is

“a social construction of the nature around us and within us, and once achieved, it expresses an embedded social vision, and it engages us in what Marx would call a form of life” (Pfaffenberger, 1988, p. 244).

Pfaffenberger used a study of irrigation infrastructure in Sri Lanka to show how infrastructure is not merely a matter of things, but a system of social behaviors (ibid. 246). More recently, the information infrastructure theorist Paul Edwards (Edwards, 2003) addresses the relation between infrastructure, the natural

environment, and culture. He argues that we build infrastructures to aid us in our efforts to make the world inhabitable. Infrastructures are “largely responsible for the sense of stability of life in the developed world, the feeling that things work, and will go on working without the need for thought or action on the part of users beyond paying the monthly bills” (Edwards, 2003, p. 4). Infrastructures channel the properties of the natural environment that we find comfortable, provide properties the natural environment cannot bring, and eliminate what we find uncomfortable or dangerous. Through this, infrastructures also constitute our experience of the natural environment (Edwards, 2003, p. 4).

Infrastructures are also central to our experience of culture: “Belonging to a given culture means, in part, having fluency in its infrastructures” (Edwards, 2003, p. 5). Think for instance of the use of roads. There are written rules, such as whether there is left-hand or right-hand driving. Foreigners can read up on these before they start driving in the new country, but will soon find out that there are also a number of informal rules for driving. However, even though we learn infrastructures as part of membership in a community (Star and Ruhleder, 1996) we still treat infrastructure and society as ontologically separate, Edwards argues (Edwards, 2003, pp. 4–5). Breakdowns of infrastructures are usually coded as either technological failure or human error, while they are usually the result of a combination of social and technical factors. Our commonsense perspective on infrastructure constructs them as something that is separate from the social, while

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our experiences will tell us otherwise if we pay attention (Edwards, 2003, p. 5).

Infrastructures are transparent, in the sense of invisibly supporting tasks (Star and Ruhleder, 1996). Breakdowns are occasions when we are forced to pay

attention to what an infrastructure consists of. When the bathroom sink is clogged, we are compelled to figure out how to dismantle the s-bend. When the airport is closed due to cold temperatures, we learn that de-frosting machines are essential parts of aviation infrastructures. Hence, occasions of breakdown are also suitable for approaching infrastructure analytically. Breakdown facilitates what Geoffrey Bowker has termed infrastructural inversion; the methodological foregrounding of elements and processes that are invisible in a functioning infrastructure

(Bowker 1994). Apart from occasions of breakdown, infrastructural inversion can be achieved by actively looking for and following inconspicuous elements.

Another way of doing infrastructural inversion is to examine historical traces of how the infrastructure emerged. For an example of this, see David Ribes' and Jessica Polk's research on a scientific infrastructure for studying the HIV disease (Ribes and Polk, 2015). Studying an infrastructure as it is emerging is also a form of infrastructural inversion. Casper B. Jensen and Brit R. Winthereik’s study of infrastructures for monitoring development aid is an example of (Jensen and Winthereik, 2013).

Infrastructures have capacities to shape the worlds we live in, and for this reason, they can be difficult to get into view. Another challenge of getting an analytical grasp of infrastructures is that they are often characterized

heterogeneity.

Conceptualizing heterogeneity

Whether we examine a subway system, an electricity grid, or an electronic patient record system, we find that they consist of heterogeneous elements that are made to work together. There are different technical components that each has their requirements. There are various groups of people with diverse interests that need to come together for there to be an infrastructure. There are laws that regulate what and who can travel in the infrastructure and how. How infrastructures work despite their inherent heterogeneity is a central topic in infrastructure studies.

Different streams of research approach this issue from different angles.

The "Large Technical Systems" (LTS) stream of research has a historical approach to infrastructures (Hughes, 1993, 1987; La Porte, 2012; Summerton, 1992). It seeks to identify historical patterns for how different infrastructures

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develop from multiple technologies solutions to one standard system. A central argument is that the dominance of one technology over the others is not only a question of technical superiority. The technology that succeeds may indeed be of lesser technical quality than the others. LTS literature emphasizes that to

understand which technology becomes the de facto standard, we need to shift the focus from internal attributes of the technology to viewing it as a system of

technical, financial, social, and political elements (Edwards, 2003; Larkin, 2013).

While the LTS stream of research identifies processes of gradual integration, the stream of research that conceptualizes infrastructures as classifications and standards focuses on how heterogeneity can co-exist and how cooperation happens across different orders (Bowker and Star, 2000; Star and Griesemer, 1989). 'Boundary object' is a central concept in their understanding. Boundary objects are abstract or concrete objects that enable cooperation between different communities of practice. A boundary object needs to be sufficiently plastic to adapt to the local needs and constraints of the various groups that use it, and sufficiently robust to maintain an identity across sites (Bowker and Star, 2000;

Star and Griesemer, 1989).

Conceptualizations of infrastructure inspired by actor-network theory (ANT) focus on how human and non-human actors come together to form infrastructures.

Infrastructures emerge as the interests of different groups are successfully translated to something they can all mobilize around (Monteiro, 2000; Walsham and Sahay, 1999). In the 1990's, ANT-inspired IS-scholars employed the concept 'information infrastructure' to accommodate the increasingly complex, embedded, and evolving character of the digital management systems they studied (see for instance Ciborra et al., 2000). In contrast to information systems, which are generally understood to be clearly demarcated, technical objects, information infrastructures are conceptualized as complex, socio-technical assemblages (Monteiro et al., 2012b, p. 576)

A core concept in how information infrastructure theory conceptualize heterogeneity is 'installed base' (Ciborra et al., 2000; Monteiro et al., 2013). The installed base is existing systems and practices. The installed base influences how the new infrastructure grows. It follows from this that infrastructures cannot be designed from scratch. Modification and extension of what already exists is a more fitting description of infrastructure design. An attribute of the installed base is that it is always evolving. As an infrastructure grows, the new systems and

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practices that have emerged from the modification and extension of what previously existed will themselves become installed base. This implies that attending to existing systems and practices should not be limited to an initiation phase. Rather, infrastructure design needs to be understood as a continuous process (Monteiro et al., 2013). The concept 'installed base cultivation' expresses the concern with process and with attending to the systems and practices that already exist (Aanestad, 2002; Hanseth and Lyytinen, 2004; see also Sahay and Walsham, 2006, pp. 188–189).

While the metaphor ‘cultivation’ enables us to think about infrastructure design as a fundamentally relational practice, and help us accept that unexpected systems and practices may become part of what we are developing, it also

suggests orderliness. Casper Bruun Jensen and Brit Ross Winthereik draw on Anna Tsing’s (2005) description of horticulture in the rainforest in Indonesia to discuss the cultivation metaphor. The people living in the rainforest sow their crops in swidden fields. The swiddens are characterized by many different plants growing together in a small spot. Visitors who are used to seeing plants cultivated in neat rows do not realize that they encounter a cultivated landscape because they are not able to recognize the principles by which the swidden is organized. To them, the landscape is wild, and they might consider clearing it to cultivate crops of their own (Tsing 2005, 165, Ch. 5; Jensen and Winthereik 2013, 117–119).

Implicit in a master metaphor of cultivation is the idea that there is a clear

distinction between weeds and crops and that the uprooting of weeds is as much a part of cultivation than nurturing the crops. But what if my weeds are your crops?

What if your order appears as disorder to me (Jensen and Winthereik, 2013)? Is it possible to imagine infrastructures where different orders exist side by side? How can we conceptualize infrastructures that remain disorderly?

Infrastructures as fractional objects

In the following, I will present theoretical approaches to heterogeneity in infrastructure that seek to understand how infrastructures might consist of

mutually incompatible objects while still hanging together sufficiently to support their assigned tasks. These approaches, associated with science and technology studies (STS), focus on the role of practices and devices in how realities come into being.

In their study of laboratory life in the Salk laboratory Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar found that scientific facts are constructed in scientific practices (Latour

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and Woolgar, 1986). They generated this insight based on an ethnographic study conducted by Latour. He observed the scientists' practices and found that they were occupied with making inscriptions. An inscription is a representation of the material substances that are manipulated in the laboratory. Typical inscriptions are figures or diagrams. The material substances are transformed to inscriptions

through inscription devices, such as test tubes and machines for analysis. The inscription devices are thus central to the production of science. Yet, Latour and Woolgar find that once the inscriptions are made, the inscription devices gets bracketed off in discussions about what the figures and diagrams mean (ibid.).

"The materiality of the process gets deleted," as John Law puts it (Law, 2004, p.

20). At the same time as the material arrangement in the laboratory is deleted, the phenomena the scientists identify and discuss could not exist without it. Hence, Latour and Woolgar argue, the phenomena are constituted by the material setting of the laboratory (Latour and Woolgar, 1986). This implies that "particular realities are constructed by for inscription devices and practices" (Law, 2004, p.

21).

That realities are being constructed in the lab does not, however, mean that any reality can be constructed. Whether a phenomenon becomes a reality depends on whether it succeeds in becoming acknowledged as a reality by other scientists.

The would-be realities are brought forward as statements about a phenomenon.

Some of these statements will be immediately disregarded by the relevant

scientific community, and some will be conditionally accepted. Over time, some of the statements will be referred to with increasingly fewer conditions applied.

They will gain in reality. Eventually, some of the statements will become part of the taken-for-granted realities that new scientific practice bases itself on (Latour and Woolgar, 1986; Law, 2004). The law of gravity and the structure of DNA are such examples.

Like Latour and Woolgar, Annemarie Mol is concerned with how realities are made (Mol, 2002). Mol follows Latour and Woolgar's argument from the laboratory to the extent that realities are produced with practices and material devices, rather than discovered through practices and material devices. However, whereas Latour and Woolgar describe processes where contested objects

gradually become stabilized, or achieve closure, Mol questions the idea that there is a single reality or a single hinterland. Perhaps, she asks, there are multiple realities. She has explored this question through observation in hospital wards that

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diagnoses and treats atherosclerosis (ibid.). She encountered different versions of atherosclerosis in different wards. In the consulting room, the diagnosis

atherosclerosis is made through the combination of a patient's story and the doctor's physical examination and interpretation. In the laboratory, the diagnosis atherosclerosis is made as an artery is dissected and examined. Are these different versions of atherosclerosis a matter of different perspectives? No, Mol argues, this is not a matter of different perspectives because objects don't exist by themselves.

Objects are brought into being with practices and things. Mol shows this by citing the pathologist who lets her examine the artery through the microscope: "Look.

Now there's your atherosclerosis. That's it. A thickening of the intima. That's really what it is. Under a microscope.” (Mol, 2002, p. 30). Without a microscope, it is not possible to conjure atherosclerosis as a layer of plaque inside an artery.

With this, Mol moves the attention from representations to objects, and from a concern with construction (like Latour and Woolgar entertain) to a concern with enactment (Law, 2004, pp. 55–57). The term ‘enactment’ as used by Mol and Law (Law, 2004, pp. 56–159; Mol, 2002, p. 44) entails that realities do not exist out- there, ready to be uncovered. ‘Enactment’ entails that realities come into being through practices and activities of humans and non-humans. Objects, like test tubes and research papers in Latour and Woolgar’s laboratory study and scalpels and microscopes in Mol’s hospital study, are also engaged in the enactment of realities. This implies that when atherosclerosis is done differently in the different sections of the hospital, we are not encountering different perspectives on the same phenomenon. Instead, we are encountering different objects (Law, 2004, p.

55; Mol, 2002, pp. 29–51).

If objects are enacted, they cannot achieve closure. They will have to be enacted again and again. There are practical closures, but they are never permanent (Law, 2004, p. 56). Mol’s argument not only

“grant objects a contested and accidental history (that they acquired a while ago, with the notion of, and the stories about their construction) but gives them a complex present, too, a present in which their

identities are fragile and may differ between sites” (Law, 2004, pp.

56–57; Mol, 2002, p. 43).

When we understand a phenomenon like atherosclerosis in a hospital as multiple objects rather than different perspectives, how can we understand coherence?

How can the different hospital wards cooperate in the treatment of a patient when her illness is enacted as different objects in each ward? Mol explains this by

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arguing that multiplicity does not imply fragmentation. There are many different atheroscleroses in the hospital, but they are connected despite their differences.

The differences are handled in several ways. Some of them are perspectival; they align the differences into a commitment to an ontological singularity. Other strategies for handling the different atheroscleroses imply avoiding multiplicity.

This can be keeping the different enactments physically separated, or creating composite objects. The term atherosclerosis is a coordinating mechanism that makes the diseased body that is enacted in the different parts of the hospital hang together despite its multiplicity (Mol, 2002, p. 117).

Law suggests that we think about the world as consisting of ‘fractional objects.' Fractional objects are more than one and less than many (Law, 2004, p.

62, 1999, pp. 9–12; see also Strathern, 1991), in the sense that they are multiple, yet overlapping. Law uses the concept ‘method assemblage’ to approach the possibility of fractional objects (Law, 2004, p. 55). As discussed above, understanding realities as enacted entails that reality is not out-there to be

uncovered, but that realities are conjured here and now with practices and things.

‘Method assemblage' denotes this conjuring of realities. Using ‘atherosclerosis as plaque inside an artery' as an example of method assemblage, this reality is enacted by a pathologist and a microscope. However, it doesn't stop there. The pathologist makes the statement based on a vast body of medical facts. The microscope produces the vision of plaque inside an artery based on established laws of optics as well as based on a tradition of medical practice that

acknowledges the use of microscopes in making diagnoses. When a pathologist enacts atherosclerosis, she connects with an existing ‘hinterland' of established scientific facts, medical traditions, educational credentials, division of

responsibilities in the hospital, and so on. This hinterland branches out endlessly.

Law denotes the connecting with this existing hinterland as ‘crafting' of relations (Law, 2004, pp. 27–43). ‘Crafting' has connotations to interaction with tools and materials with the purpose of bringing something into being. This highlights that while reality is not out-there to be uncovered, it is not only a matter of linguistic construction either.

If the pathologist or the microscope fails to craft relations to such a hinterland (for instance if the pathologist cannot prove that he has a diploma from a medical school or if the lenses of the microscope are not positioned according to the requirements for optical tools), atherosclerosis cannot be enacted (Law, 2004).

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Method assemblage concerns the generation of presence and is "the process of crafting and enacting the necessary boundaries between presence, manifest absence and Otherness" (Law, 2004, p. 42). The hinterland of the atherosclerosis enacted in the consulting room and the hinterland of the atherosclerosis in the pathologist’s laboratory are not the same, but they are partly overlapping. The bundling together of partially overlapping hinterlands generates fractional objects (Law, 2004, p. 160). Based on Law and Mol’s arguments, Miria Grisot has

conceptualized information infrastructures as fractionally coherent objects. She argues that this understanding makes it possible to account for flexibility and plasticity of an infrastructure without creating a center, and still understand it as coherent (Grisot, 2008; see also Law, 2002).

Fractional objects, including infrastructures, hang together despite being multiple. Achieving this might entail considerable tension, however. Moreover, if the world consists of fractional objects, there is a possibility that other realities can be enacted. This possibility calls for considering ‘ontological politics’ (Law, 2002;

Mol, 1999).

Ontological politics

‘Ontology’ refers to “what belongs to the real, the conditions of possibility we live with” (Mol, 1999). ‘Epistemology’ refers to assumptions about knowledge and how it can be acquired (Myers, living version). When Mol and Law refer to objects being multiple or fractional, they suggest that this condition should not be understood as an epistemological concern but rather as an ontological concern.

What is at stake is not that objects, such as a diseased body, is understood

differently depending on the position of the beholder, but that the body is done, or enacted differently. If reality “does not precede the mundane practices in which we interact with it, but is rather shaped within these practices” (Mol, 1999, p. 75), we are faced with the possibility of ‘ontological politics. If we enact reality, there is a possibility of enacting other realities.

With ontological politics in mind, I will consider the role of metaphors in infrastructure studies. Metaphors are particularly useful for making sense of complex phenomena like infrastructures. In the kind of infrastructure research that explicitly aims to contribute to practice, metaphors are not only used

descriptively, but also accommodate practitioners in their work of developing infrastructures. See for instance Claudio Ciborra’s collection of metaphors offered to aid information system developers in their work (Ciborra, 2002). ‘Hosts and

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guests’ is one example from this collection (Ciborra 2002, 103–114). Other examples are ‘cultivation’ (Aanestad, 2002), ‘bootstrapping’ (Hanseth and Aanestad, 2003) and ‘grafting’ (Sanner et al., 2014). The linguist George Lakoff and the philosopher Mark Johnson argue that metaphors “provide a partial understanding of one kind of experience in terms of another kind of experience”

(1980, p. 154). They understand metaphors as the use of one experience to

highlight certain aspects of another experience and downplay other aspects. In this sense, they do not merely describe reality, but influence what becomes real to us (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980). If we for example engage the metaphor ‘developing infrastructure is a process of cultivation’ (Aanestad, 2002; see also Dahlbom and Janlert, 1996; Hanseth and Lyytinen, 2004), aspects of infrastructure development that are similar to a process of growing something, such as tomatoes, is

highlighted. This will make infrastructure development appear to us as an

interplay between elements that are to greater and lesser extents controllable. Like we cannot control the weather, we cannot control the politicians that one year will grant funding to our domain and the next year not. Like plants needs to be cared for with weeding and fertilization in order to grow, an infrastructure needs attention and supportive actions for its installed base to grow to a sustainable level. Consider applying a metaphor of war to infrastructure development instead.

This will highlight conflict, dominance, and submission. Incremental adaptations and processes of supportive action will fade out of view, and we will make sense of the experience as conquest of competitors, rollout of technology and

penetration of markets. If we make sense of infrastructure development in terms of cultivation, we will also strive to cultivate infrastructures. If we make sense of them as war, we will seek to infrastructure through conquering and controlling.

Lakoff and Johnson are concerned with the epistemology of metaphors, i.e., how metaphors shape our understanding of the world. Their understanding can be categorized as ‘perspectivalism’ (Mol, 1999, pp. 75–76), the view that people see an object differently and represent what they have seen in different ways. The object that is seen does, however, remain singular and unchanged by its viewers’

engagement with it. Mol, on the other hand, argues that the object is not seen and represented differently. It is rather done differently. This is what makes the question of how we engage with an object, such as an infrastructure, not only a matter of epistemology but a matter of ontological politics (Mol, 1999).

The STS scholar Helen Verran incorporates ontological politics in her

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thinking about the role of metaphor in negotiations over land use in Australia. In her paper “Re-imagining land ownership in Australia”, she shows how metaphors enact realities, and discusses how being aware of our epistemological and

ontological commitments can make us better able to share resources with people who enact realities different from us (Verran, 1998). Verran argues that when we are aware that we are in the business of enacting realities rather than discovering them, we establish a platform for negotiating with people that enact radically different realities than us (Verran, 2002, 1998). She suggests how this can be done by discussing occasions when the knowledge traditions of Australian Aborigines and the knowledge traditions of non-Aborigine Australians meet (Verran, 2002, 1998). The specific way that Australian Aborigines understand the world and their being in the world is commonly referred to in English as ‘the Dreaming.' ‘The Dreaming' can be understood as eternal time, in contrast to the secular time in which we live our everyday life (Verran, 1998). Verran conceptualizes ‘the Dreaming' as an ontic/epistemic imaginary. ‘Imaginary’ stresses knowing and knowledge making, rather than knowledge as a stable body. To the Australian Aborigines there is a recursive relation between kinship and landscape. Places need to be enacted and re-enacted, and people are constituted by their relation to places (Verran, 2002, 1998). This implies that the world can be re-made, and that it is possible to negotiate alternative ways of enacting the world. To non-

Aborigine Australians, on the other hand, the land is an entity independent of themselves. It can be known about through methods for measuring that holds everywhere.

The understanding that land is quantifiable and can be reduced to interchangeable entities makes it difficult for non-Aborigine pastoralist to

cooperate and negotiate with Aborigines who conceptualize land as constituted by its relation to kinship structures and vice versa (Verran, 1998). Nevertheless, Verran argues, it is possible to find ways of working together even knowledge traditions as radically different as this. However, this demands to forgo a

universalistic claim to epistemic and ontological privilege. When we acknowledge that we enact the world and that it is not out there to be discovered given the right methods, we can also acknowledge other people's enactments. Once we recognize this, we can negotiate ontological politics.

It is important to be aware of ontological politics when we make

representations of infrastructure so we can take conscious decisions about the

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realities we choose to enact. Which connections can we get to see if we understand infrastructures as weedy, or look for wormholes (Jensen and

Winthereik, 2013)? What will enter our field of vision if we think of infrastructure development as grafting (Sanner et al., 2014) or as choreography and dance

(Røhnebæk, 2012)? In terms of politics: Whose interests will be highlighted and whose will fade? Whose work will be foregrounded and whose will become invisible? In terms of pragmatic considerations: Can this metaphor facilitate the development of more sustainable infrastructures? Can it aid a less resource intensive development?

Above I have discussed how infrastructure has world-shaping capacities and presented theoretical approaches to the heterogeneity of infrastructure. I have discussed how infrastructure may be understood as fractional objects that are enacted, and how this calls for a consideration of ontological politics in infrastructure development. Now I will turn to the concept ‘infrastructuring', which highlights practice and process as key elements for understanding what infrastructure is. I understand infrastructuring as the crafting of connections between people, things, and places with the purpose of establishing, maintaining, and restoring infrastructure to a state of ready-to-hand. Before I elaborate on this, I will discuss the use of verb-forms of infrastructure (‘infrastructuring' and ‘to infrastructure') in existing literature.

The use of ‘infrastructuring’ as an analytical concept

In this section, I will present how various scholars use ‘infrastructuring’ as an analytical concept. I will sort the different uses of the term in two broad

categories: ‘Infrastructuring’ as ‘the work of making infrastructure happen’, and

‘infrastructuring’ as ‘turning into infrastructure’¹.

‘Infrastructuring’ as the work of making infrastructures happen

The use of ‘infrastructuring’ to denote the work of making infrastructures happen can be traced to early work in the information systems domain that addressed the

1 I will also note that ‘infrastructuring’ has been used in the domain Participatory Design (PD) (Björgvinsson et al., 2010; Ehn, 2008; Korn and Voida, 2015; Le Dantec and DiSalvo, 2013). In PD, infrastructuring is found productive in efforts of moving PD from its' traditional workplace setting to communities such as neighborhoods (Björgvinsson et al., 2010). ‘Infrastructuring’ is used to denote such efforts of engaging the public in “participation as an ongoing act of articulating and responding to dynamic attachments” (Le Dantec and DiSalvo, 2013, p. 260).

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relation between design and use of digital artifacts. As computers became an increasingly common part of professional life during the 1980's, a body of literature investigating the relation between design and use of technologies emerged. In 1979, Rob Kling and Walt Scacchi made the then novel observation that while computers are designed to be a time-saving and problem-solving technology, they generate their own special problems (Kling and Scacchi, 1979).

They noted that many of the problems associated with computing arose from the way the technology was embedded in complex social relationships. Instead of viewing computers as tools, they would be conceptualized more adequately as packages. The package metaphor, they argued, would enable an understanding of computers that expanded beyond the physical device and “included a diverse set of skills, organizational units to supply and maintain computer-based services and data and sets of beliefs about what computing is good for and how it may be used efficaciously” (Kling and Scacchi, 1979, p. 108). Other examples of early work problematizing a clear division between design and use are Elihu Gerson and Susan Leigh Star’s (Gerson and Star, 1986) highlighting of ‘articulation work’ as the work of reconciling incommensurate assumptions and procedures and Les Gasser's highlighting of ‘work-around’ as practices to make inadequate computer systems function according to the users’ needs (Gasser, 1986).

More recently, Lucy Suchman has used feminist theory to challenge the user/designer opposition (Suchman, 2002). She argues that the traditional understanding of design is an unattached designer's creation of discrete devices.

This understanding ignores that the knowledge of designers, as well as users, is partial and situated. There are no "views from nowhere" (Haraway, 1988).

Suchman argues that as a consequence of this, the development of useful systems should take place “through the deliberate creation of situations that allow for the meeting of different partial knowledges” (Suchman 2002, 94). This implies that designers should give up their control and enter the working relations that make technical systems possible from day to day (Suchman 2002).

Margunn Aanestad (Aanestad, 2003) also advocates an approach to design where the appropriation of artifacts in evolving networks is at the core. She proposes to view design as ‘design of configurations’ to encourage design processes that seek to identify well-working configurations of users and technology. This implies a design process that continues after the users

appropriate the technology. It facilitates a critical approach to design because a

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configuration is necessarily only one of several possible (Aanestad, 2003).

Suchman (2012, 2007) also engages the notion ‘configuration’ to explore how technologies come into being. She points out that ‘configuration’ is

simultaneously a mode of ordering and the arrangement of elements in a particular combination. This conceptualizes objects as socio-material assemblages that are held together by continuous work (Suchman 2012). Configuration, she argues,

“alerts us to attend to the histories and encounters through which things are figured into meaningful existence” (ibid., 50).

The use of ‘infrastructuring’ to denote the work of making infrastructures happen is a recent contribution to this long-term engagement with the boundaries between design and use. Star and Bowker (2002) use the verb “to infrastructure”

to highlight the importance of the work of modification that goes on during use of infrastructures. Bossen and Markussen (2010) build on their work when they argue that the verb form of ‘infrastructure' highlights the ongoing work that sustains infrastructures. Likewise, Aanestad and colleagues (2014) find

‘infrastructuring’ to be a useful analytical tool for addressing work as a concrete activity in studies of information systems. They observe that IS studies often loose sight of concrete work practices because of the domain’s conventional focus on the level of organization.

Pipek and Wulf use ‘infrastructuring’ to denote “all creative activities related to the successful establishment of a technology in use” (Pipek and Wulf, 2009, p.

458). They approach the common temporal distinction between a design phase and a use phase by asking “when is design?” inspired by Star and Ruhleder’s (Star and Ruhleder, 1996) question "when is an infrastructure?" They answer this

question by suggesting a "point of infrastructure," which is "the moment when an infrastructure becomes visible to its users" (Pipek and Wulf, 2009, p. 458). An infrastructure becomes visible to its users either when it breaks down, or when there is local use innovation, they argue. Under both these circumstances, the user can cross the border from routinely using an infrastructure to modifying it (Pipek and Wulf, 2009).

Karasti, Baker, and Millerand highlight temporality with their use of

‘infrastructuring'. For an infrastructure to remain transparent, development work and maintenance done locally and within a short-term dimension need to be compatible with future developments, such as requirements for updates of software (Karasti et al., 2010). Parmiggiani, Monteiro, and Hepsø also use

Crafting connections – practices of infrastructuring: An ethnographic study of developing a village electricity grid in Bangladesh