Suchergebnisse

This article asks methodological questions about studying infrastructure with some of the tools and perspectives of ethnography. Infrastructure is both relational and ecological—it means different things to different groups and it is part of the balance of action, tools, and the built environment, inseparable from them. It also is frequently mundane to the point of boredom, involving things such as plugs, standards, and bureaucratic forms. Some of the difficulties of studying infrastructure are how to scale up from traditional ethnographic sites, how to manage large quantities of data such as those produced by transaction logs, and how to understand the interplay of online and offline behavior. Some of the tricks of the trade involved in meeting these challenges include studying the design of infrastructure, understanding the paradoxes of infrastructure as both transparent and opaque, including invisible work in the ecological analysis, and pinpointing the epistemological status of indictors.

This article analyzes the strategies and means by which universalist claims about human nature become successful in science. Of specific interest are the conditions under which claims of this sort are taken to be inherently superior to those which are particularistic or context-specific (a hierarchy of values which we term "universality bias"). We trace the birth of universalists claims in neglected fields, their growth through methodological agreements and the use of invisible referents, and their roots in multiple audiences with different evaluation criteria. Our analysis complements philosophical and political critiques of theories about human nature and demonstrates the historical specificity of universalist claims.

Can the principles of participatory design be applied in large infrastructure projects? We address our experience as social scientists co-developing a larger digital library project funded by the US government. We focus on how to understand the ways in which potential use, new and old infrastructure, and large project organization interact. We use three concepts: commitments, object worlds, and trajectories, and their associated processes (crystallization, maintainm g ambiguity, finding users, and building on the inertia of the installed base). We discuss the importance of linked visions and dreams, drawing on Watson- Verran's notion of "imaginary."

Susan Leigh Star's (1954-2010) research encompasses aspects of infrastructural and social theory, knowledge ecologies, feminism and theories of marginality. For the first time, this volume introduces the American science and technology sociologist's most important writings in German. Her texts on border objects, marginality, infrastructures and standards are commented upon by academics and scientists in these fields, and analyzed for their relevance to media studies. With commentaries by Geoffrey C. Bowker, Cora Bender, Ulrike Bergermann, Monika Dommann, Christine Hanke, Bernhard Nett, Jörg Potthast, Gabriele Schabacher, Cornelius Schubert, Erhard Schüttpelz und Jörg Strübing

Susan Leigh Stars (1954-2010) Werk bewegt sich zwischen Infrastrukturforschung, Sozialtheorie, Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Ökologie und Feminismus. Die wegweisenden historischen und ethnografischen Texte der US-amerikanischen Technik- und Wissenschaftssoziologin liegen mit diesem Band erstmals gesammelt auf Deutsch vor. Ihre Arbeiten zu Grenzobjekten, Marginalität, Arbeit, Infrastrukturen und Praxisgemeinschaften werden interdisziplinär kommentiert und auf ihre medienwissenschaftliche Produktivität hin befragt. Mit Kommentaren von Geoffrey C. Bowker, Cora Bender, Ulrike Bergermann, Monika Dommann, Christine Hanke, Bernhard Nett, Jörg Potthast, Gabriele Schabacher, Cornelius Schubert, Erhard Schüttpelz und Jörg Strübing.