[Themaintainers] infrastructure

Thu Feb 11 12:05:19 EST 2021

While only tangentially related, this seminar held at the University of
California Humanities Research Institute on “Reading for Infrastructure,
Infrastructure for Reading” offers an interesting perspective on the
boundaries of thinking about infrastructure.

https://uchri.org/foundry/reading-for-infrastructure/

Reading for Infrastructure, Infrastructure for Reading

Adriana Johnson
Comparative Literature
UC Irvine

Susan Zieger
English
UC Riverside

This group’s leading question was how to reimagine infrastructure as an
interpretive method of analysis: what does it mean to read for
infrastructure or to use infrastructure as a tool for reading? Participants
were particularly interested in the edges of infrastructure studies, the
places where an infrastructural perspective worms its way into new
disciplinary terrains, the places where its metaphoricity and materiality
can do unexpected theoretical work. In anthropology, the infrastructural
turn often focuses on material infrastructures; in media studies, it takes
up communications networks. Participants instead turn infrastructure into a
“theory-machine” that affords readings of racial relations, labor, and
environment. They believe this creative use of infrastructure as method
rather than object can fructify across disciplines, taking critical
infrastructure studies on unanticipated new trajectories and that the
Humanities have a critical role to play here.

The workshop began with three overlapping zones of critical interest among
our participants: race, labor and environment. Initial organizing questions
were: How do certain infrastructures – institutional, material, social,
political – ground critical readings in the hermeneutics of suspicion and
the exposure of hidden or insidious power? What changes when ones reads for
older, slower, softer, ruined or absent forms of infrastructure? How are
infrastructures sunk into environment – becoming themselves environment –
as well as compressed into superstructure? Can infrastructural readings
configure and weigh the often invisible labor that builds and maintains
roads, pipelines, housing developments, educational projects, gardens and
landscapes? How might reading for infrastructure expose the material
systems that allow racial categories to be thought, ascribed and lived? If
extending an infrastructural perspective into new terrain implies thinking
through the various functions associated with material infrastructures –
carrying, circulating, connecting, dividing, extracting – might this
produce a new politics of infrastructure? Might thinking and interpreting
infrastructurally generate reparative readings?
A summary of the seminar is here:

https://uchri.org/foundry/reading-for-infrastructure/?fbclid=IwAR2IS10B4xteOZOQTEmm9784twIgRmxVr1fTrJwZ0D774sacs1zoUwZ3iR0

Warmly,

Lacey Torge
Library Juice Press
Library Juice Academy

On Thu, Feb 4, 2021 at 1:40 PM Rodriguez-Nikl, Tonatiuh <
Tonatiuh.Rodriguez-Nikl7 at calstatela.edu> wrote:

> Related to “- protection, robustness and resilience against extreme
> weather (e.g., place power and distribution lines and optical cables
> underground against wildfires, snow, ice)”:
>
>
>
> Municipalities have resilience managers serving under the mayor. These
> people work with all city offices to coordinate long term resilience
> activities. Perhaps a similar effort at the federal level makes sense. My
> knowledge of federal policy and governmental structure is insufficient to
> suggest anything more specific.
>
>
>
> *From:* themaintainers-bounces at lists.stevens.edu <
> themaintainers-bounces at lists.stevens.edu> *On Behalf Of *Tallman, Nathan
> *Sent:* miércoles, 3 de febrero de 2021 08:28 a. m.
> *To:* Themaintainers <themaintainers at lists.stevens.edu>
> *Subject:* Re: [Themaintainers] infrastructure
>
>
>
> Under coverage, I think we should advocate for reclassifying broadband as
> a utility, which helps ensure net neutrality and improves access to
> broadband. The Obama FCC did this, but it was rolled back by the Trump FCC.
>
>
>
>
> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/05/worst-case-scenario-why-the-cable-lobby-is-scared-of-becoming-a-utility/
>
>
>
> *From: *<themaintainers-bounces at lists.stevens.edu> on behalf of Jonathan
> Coopersmith <j-coopersmith at tamu.edu>
> *Date: *Wednesday, February 3, 2021 at 10:46 AM
> *To: *Themaintainers <themaintainers at lists.stevens.edu>
> *Subject: *[Themaintainers] infrastructure
>
>
>
> We would love to see some discussion on this list about what (and how) a
> Biden administration infrastructure plan should include – or not include.
> Feel free to comment below or in our Google doc (https://docs.google
> .com/document/d/1KIwcUftbbPFosuCImIgTo9Vi7efjHqwrzLPI-d32NlA/edit#heading=h.sldtfjeu8n39
> <https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Furldefense.com%2Fv3%2F__https%3A%2Fdocs.google.com%2Fdocument%2Fd%2F1KIwcUftbbPFosuCImIgTo9Vi7efjHqwrzLPI-d32NlA%2Fedit*heading%3Dh.sldtfjeu8n39__%3BIw!!KwNVnqRv!Wa5eXMIDkSjQh8d6_dDL_t8KFwpsj8ARrRo6fV7jE22O2cvLuuhOnuoJXbgmEGvzFaoy%24&data=04%7C01%7CTonatiuh.Rodriguez-Nikl7%40calstatela.edu%7C20a1b8d9185d42dc6dd508d8c918caae%7Cce8a2002448f4f5882b1d86f73e3afdd%7C0%7C0%7C637480456553877544%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000&sdata=CMWCISI5HHL7tFcz6oMxWx8tGoYs25hXAlpfLZ1pE6M%3D&reserved=0>
> )
>
> Here are a few ideas – thoughts?
>
>
>
> Any good horror stories to exemplify what *not* to do?
>
>
>
> *Coverage*
>
> What should a federal infrastructure initiative include?
>
> - upgrading/replacing USG and state legacy computer systems?
>
> - upgrading/creating data collection systems for, e.g., underground asset
> data and similar needs (e.g., Open Geospatial Consortium)
>
> - eliminating lead pipes?
>
> - universal broadband
>
> - electric car chargers?
>
> - secure networks for AVs, IOT
>
> - protection, robustness and resilience against extreme weather (e.g.,
> place power and distribution lines and optical cables underground against
> wildfires, snow, ice)
>
>
>
>
>
> *Universal project requirements*
>
> Mandate a maintenance overview of every project with general goals.
>
>    What are those goals?
>
> Very important is the concept of pay more now for lower life-cycle costs –
> how can this tradeoff best be expressed or quantified?  What is the time
> frame?  This has the dual benefits of helping the economy more now when it
> is needed and reducing future spending by governments.
>
>
>
> Design for easy maintenance and upgrading – are there specific examples or
> policies to cite?
>
>
>
>
>
> *Implementation*
>
> Reinstate the Obama ARRA compliance public tracker
>
>
>
> What else did the Obama ARRA do right – and wrong (in some cases,
> “shovel-ready” meant clunkers of projects instead of good, but unfunded
> projects)?
>
>
>
> Incentivize private and public sector maintenance by creating liability
> safe harbors for asset owners and operators (analogous to safe harbors
> protecting MDs from malpractice lawsuits if they practice evidence-based
> medicine)
>
>
>
> Involve the public as much as possible in understanding the options and
> tradeoffs.  Try to obtain maximum buy-in (remembering that pain tends to be
> concentrated and gains diffused).
>
>
>
> Force competing entities to create interfaces for easier data exchange
> (one flaw of the Obama administration promotion of electronic medical
> records was its failure to mandate that firms that received USG$ had to
> create and offer a universal interface so competing products could compete
> – the administration believed normal market forces would ensure that.  It
> was wrong).
>
>
>
> Many thanks!
>
>
>
> Stay sane, keep washing those hands, and practice social solidarity as
> well as physical distancing,
>
>
>
> Jonathan
>
>
>
> Jonathan Coopersmith
>
> Professor
>
> Department of History
>
> Texas A&M University
>
> College Station, TX  77843-4236
>
> 979.739.4708 (cell)
>
> 979.862.4314 (fax)
>
>
>
> Engineering elections:
> https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/telecom/security/engineering-principles-us-election
> <https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fspectrum.ieee.org%2Ftech-talk%2Ftelecom%2Fsecurity%2Fengineering-principles-us-election&data=04%7C01%7CTonatiuh.Rodriguez-Nikl7%40calstatela.edu%7C20a1b8d9185d42dc6dd508d8c918caae%7Cce8a2002448f4f5882b1d86f73e3afdd%7C0%7C0%7C637480456553887530%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000&sdata=d5WxLSUjGRUCHIgD9NcFl2ZieevBruamvJgrzN3sy3U%3D&reserved=0>
>
>
>
> Racial disparities in waiting to vote:
> https://theconversation.com/it-takes-a-long-time-to-vote-141267
> <https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftheconversation.com%2Fit-takes-a-long-time-to-vote-141267&data=04%7C01%7CTonatiuh.Rodriguez-Nikl7%40calstatela.edu%7C20a1b8d9185d42dc6dd508d8c918caae%7Cce8a2002448f4f5882b1d86f73e3afdd%7C0%7C0%7C637480456553887530%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000&sdata=ZOCEgH9CLISnkz81avDGfOT1YX2bztBZPNTwgJKL8O0%3D&reserved=0>
>
>
>
> *FAXED.  The Rise and Fall of the Fax Machine* (Johns Hopkins University
> Press)
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Themaintainers mailing list
> Themaintainers at lists.stevens.edu
> https://lists.stevens.edu/mailman/listinfo/themaintainers
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.stevens.edu/pipermail/themaintainers/attachments/20210211/dc0495fe/attachment.html>