The Long Now of Technology Infrastructure: Articulating Tensions in Development

Abstract

Designing e-infrastructure is work conducted today with an eye toward long-term sustainability. Participants in such development projects find themselves caught with one foot in the demands of the present and the other in a desired future. In this paper we seek to capture participants' formulation of problems as they go about developing long-term information infrastructure.Drawing from cross-case ethnographic studies of four US e-infrastructure projects for the earth and environmental sciences (cyberinfrastructure), we trace nine tensions as they are framed and articulated by participants. To assist in understanding participants' orientations we abstract three concerns -motivating contribution, aligning end goals, and designing for use -which manifest themselves uniquely at each of the 'scales of infrastructure': institutionalization, the organization of work, and enacting technology. The concept of "the long now" helps us understand that participants seek to simultaneously address all three concerns in long-term development endeavors.

From Artefacts to Infrastructures

“…Edwards et al (2007) have described how difficulties in aligning the entrenched differences between local systems generate pressures of competition or accommodation between systems that may be resolved through the creation of 'gateways', which allow multiple divergent systems to interoperate. The tensions and discrepancies between local systems may in due course generate pressures leading to periodic adjustments and redevelopments to accommodate changing internal and external circumstances (Ribes and Finholt 2009).…”

Global data for local science: Assessing the scale of data infrastructures in biological and biomedical research

“…2 The internet, used in conjunction with distributed computing tools such as grids and cloud computing, enables the dissemination and retrieval of information on a geographical and temporal scale surpassing anything seen before. STS scholars who investigated the role played by online databases in supporting large research network include Star and Ruhleder (1996), Bowker (2000), Ribes and Finholt (2009), Baker and Millerand (2010), Leonelli (2010), Parker, Vermeulen and Penders (2010) and Edwards (2010). as evidence. 3 Further, epistemic cultures are not stable objects: the combinations of individuals, expertises, interests and methods that characterise them are subject to constant change to match the ever-shifting nature of biological knowledge and of living systems themselves.…”

Introduction

“…Working with infrastructures within healthcare is especially challenging because novelty has to link to complex conventions of practice and to technologically congested landscapes that have gradually matured during several decades. Taking an infrastructural perspective does not only orient attention to interconnections and relationships but also to issues of durability, permanence and strategies for effectively managing future evolution (Ribes and Finholt 2009;Karasti et al 2010).…”