[Themaintainers] Decommissioning Online Infrastructures

[Björn Wallsten]

Running a distinct risk of being too much of a self marketeer here, I think that my disseration “The Urk World” would fit at least the decommisioning/dismantling bits of your request (perhaps not so much the digital infrastructure ones though).


Anyhows, in that piece of work, I investigate “urks”, i.e. infrastructure (parts) that have been left behind after being disconnected. The subsurface realm of cities is literally full of the stuff (we found a fifth of a Swedish city’s infrastructure to be urks in terms of weight), and I investigated it in part using STS- and infrastructure studies-theory, to find out how these missing masses amass, both in terms of practice and the regulatory framings of infrastructure.


I'd be happy to send a printed copy if you think this sounds interesting, there is for example a previous research-section related to your request in the thesis, see page 33 and onwards.


Best,

//Björn


• Wallsten, B. and Krook J. (2016). “Urks and the Urban Subsurface as Geosocial Formation”, Science, Technology, and Human Values<http://sth.sagepub.com/content/41/5/827.full.pdf> 41(5) 827-848.
• Wallsten, B. (2015). “The Urk World - Hibernating Infrastructures and the Quest for Urban Mining” (PhD Thesis<http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-122758>).
________________________________
Björn WALLSTEN, Post doc researcher.
Department of Thematic Studies – Technology and Social Change
Linköping University
SE-581 83 Linköping
Phone: +46 (0) 1328 5625
Homepage: https://www.tema.liu.se/tema-t/medarbetare/wallsten-bjorn?l=en
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________________________________
From: themaintainers-bounces at lists.stevens.edu <themaintainers-bounces at lists.stevens.edu> on behalf of Joshua Braun <jabraun at journ.umass.edu>
Sent: Friday, February 17, 2017 7:18:44 PM
To: Themaintainers at lists.stevens.edu
Subject: [Themaintainers] Decommissioning Online Infrastructures


Hi Maintainers,

I'm looking for literature suggestions. I'm currently starting work on a research project looking at Twitter's dismantling of the Vine video service. In line with the observation made in excellent essays like Steven Jackson's "Rethinking Repair" [1] and Marisa Cohn's "Engineering Obsolesence" [2], there seems to be a lot of research in both media studies and STS on how new technologies, products, and services get created, but not nearly so much on how older ones get dismantled and decommissioned.

Some of your own work, which I've been catching up on via the Maintainers website, has already been very helpful. So please plug it. And I would welcome your recommendations of additional literature that touches on these areas. I'm interested in the topic broadly, but papers on the decommissioning of software and digital infrastructures would be particularly helpful.

Many Thanks,
Josh

P.S. I sent a similar version of this note to the AIR-L list. Apologies if you receive this as a cross-post.

[1] https://sjackson.infosci.cornell.edu/RethinkingRepairPROOFS(reduced)Aug2013.pdf<https://sjackson.infosci.cornell.edu/RethinkingRepairPROOFS%28reduced%29Aug2013.pdf>
[2] http://ethnographymatters.net/blog/2014/04/21/engineering_obsolescence/


--
Josh Braun, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Journalism Studies
Journalism Department
University of Massachusetts Amherst

@josh_braun
Skype: wideaperture
http://wideaperture.net/
new book: http://wideaperture.net/?view=book

"Maybe the only gift is a chance to inquire, to know nothing for certain.  An inheritance of wonder and nothing more."
William Least Heat-Moon
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