SoLiXG:Infrastructure
Infrastructure
The term infrastructure is often used following a specification such as digital, computational, internet, media or social. Thereby the literature on the specified infrastructures frequently lacks a definition of what is actually meant by the term infrastructure. Lisa Parks (2015, p. 355) defines it, following the Oxford English Dictionary, as a “collective term for subordinate parts of an undertaking; substructure, foundation” and highlights that it emerged in the early twentieth century, being associated with the military. Instances of infrastructures often referred to are railway tracks, roads, electrical grids or telecommunication systems. Within the project the Social Life of XG, we understand infrastructures as deeply material and social, this means we are interested in the resources needed e.g. to enable XG and the societal as well political implications this has, the power dynamics at place and who is included/excluded. Infrastructures are often at work, without being noticed apart from when they break down (Star & Ruhleder, 1996, p. 113) but the question arises which invisible labour is performed to build, maintain and repair those infrastructures?
Another pressing topic is the ownership of said infrastructures. Infrastructures are often associated as funded by the state and public. Boosts in privatization and commodification yield an increase in private infrastructures, as easily illustrated with the role of Amazon (i.e. Amazon Web Services) as a central infrastructure for the internet.