Infrastructure and ethnographic practice: Working on the fringes

By bringing together science studies, information science and ethnographic fieldwork in interdisciplinary research the author argues for the relevance of ethnographic practices when studying information systems as infrastructures of communication. Ethnographic fieldwork focuses attention on fringes...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scandinavian journal of information systems 2002-01, Vol.14 (2), p.6
Main Author: Star, Susan Leigh
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Access control
Ethnography
Field study
Information systems
Infrastructure
Interdisciplinary studies
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:By bringing together science studies, information science and ethnographic fieldwork in interdisciplinary research the author argues for the relevance of ethnographic practices when studying information systems as infrastructures of communication. Ethnographic fieldwork focuses attention on fringes and materialities of infrastructures and renders the researcher able to read the invisible layers of control and access, to understand the changes in the social orderings that are brought about by information technology. Numerous examples and personal accounts of studies of infrastructures with ethnographic tools show how paying analytical attention to mundane aspects of information infrastructures helps to understand the consequences of the imbrication of infrastructure and human organization.
ISSN:0905-0167
1901-0990