INFRASTRUCTURE AS A HOME FOR A PERSON: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION OF STAR AND RUHLEDER?S RELATIONAL VIEW1

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Reimers, Kai; Schellhammer, Stefan; Johnston, Robert B.
• 署名单位: RWTH Aachen University; University of Munster; University of Sydney; University College Dublin
• 刊物名称: MIS QUARTERLY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0276-7783
• DOI: 10.25300/MISQ/2022/15622
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 1551-1572
• 关键词: information; TECHNOLOGY; RETHINKING; emergence; emotions; DESIGN

摘要

Star and Ruhleder's (1996) influential relational view of infrastructure is usually understood as a relation between technologies and organizational practices. However, a significant part of Star and Ruhleder's original proposal has been overlooked-that infrastructure becomes a home for somebody. In this paper, we give an alternative interpretation of this relational view by focusing on the relation between a person and their infrastructure, rather than on the relation between technologies and practices. We use Heidegger's (1927/1962) phenomenology in Being and Time to theorize what such a home might entail and a novel data collection method to study infrastructuring empirically from the perspective of a person. On this basis, we offer new theoretically grounded interpretations of infrastructure and infrastructuring. Empirically, we identify two modes of infrastructuring not previously distinguished. The perspective sheds new light on a number of key themes and debates in the literature and on infrastructuring in practice.