Backroom Research

The study of infrastructure appears complex, and my understanding of it is only slightly clearer after reading Star’s article.  Star explains infrastructure as ‘invisible, part of the background for other kinds of work’ (p. 4).  She also states that infrastructure is a relational concept and that one person’s infrastructure is another’s topic, or difficulty (p. 4).  This can be mystifying, how do you know, for instance, if you are dealing with an infrastructure within your study?  To clarify this, Star further defines infrastructure as having specific properties including embeddedness, transparency and links with conventions of practice, to name just a few (p. 4-6).  She also offers some tricks of the trade based on her own experiences in studying infrastructures (p. 8-11).

I definitely see the importance of studying infrastructures, in that it provides a complete picture to whatever you are investigating, but I am still confused on how it should be studied.  After reading another one of my classmate’s post, outside of my blog group, one of their questions really resonated with me; that is how do you study technological infrastructure when you have a limited knowledge of technology yourself?  This is certainly my problem, I’m just not tech-savvy!