Exploring the Limits of “Institution” and “Infrastructure” in Knowledge Interactions

• In Event: Infrastructure: Mitigate, Sustain or Vacate?

Abstract

In the opening of his book "The Consequences of Modernity" (1990), Anthony Giddens states that he will develop "an institutional analysis of modernity with cultural and epistemological overtones." For him, the establishment and prominence of institutions is a distinguishing characteristic of modernity, and change within the modern period is due to changes and shifts in the institutions that comprise it. This is in contrast to definitional approaches to modernity that start with epistemological innovations, such as Bacon's effort to establish the scientific method as the basis for knowledge in the "Novum Organum " (1620).

On the other hand, "infrastructure" has come to be a key concept in the 4S community. As Matt Mayernik noted on Twitter, this year's listing of open panels and their descriptions contain nearly 100 uses of the word "infrastructure, and it has become something of a master concept in discussions of socio-technical systems.

Both institutions and infrastructure have been sites of ethnographic study; analysis of both often focuses on the “lifting out” and examination of their relational structures; that structure is often characterized as expressing a political economy. Generally, the study of institutions focuses on the politics of participation and leadership; the study of infrastructure locates politics in their design and distribution. Both are concerned with interactions and flows. And both terms have been extended beyond their original meanings to cover a range of academic concepts and characterizations.

We intend to compare the two notions particularly in reference to arrangements characterized as knowledge ”infrastructures” and “institutions”. We hope to return some precision by exploring limits to each concept.

Authors

• Gregory Leazer, UCLA Dept of Information Studies

• Robert Montoya, Indiana University Bloomington