Actornetwork theory and infrastructure

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Actor-network theory and infrastructure
Eric Monteiro NTNU and Univ. of Oslo IN-IS
IFI UiO
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Contents

• Appetizer
• Key ideas and concepts

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AC vs. DC
?
Altern. current cheap transport
Direct current motor
Do you want those deadly currents in your home?
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History of ideas (at a glance)

• Philosophy of science
• T. Kuhn
• sociology of science
• sociology of technology
• Science and technology studies (STS)
• Labour process
• H. Braverman, D. Noble
• Sociology of work

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Main variants of STS

• Technological systems (T. Hughes)
• socio-technical web, momentum
• Social construction of technology (Bijker,
  Woolgar)
• interpretative flexibility, symmetries,
  stabilisation
• Cultural studies (R. Silverstone, KH Sørensen)
• domestication, appropriation, consumption, taming
• Actor-network theory

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What kind of animal is ANT?

• Alternatives exist
• Giddens, ethnografy, grounded theory, activity
  theory,...
• A theory?
• A methodology?
• A perspective?
• A vocabular!

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Basic moves

• Our world is full of technology
• The end, not the means
• Same role gt same explanation
• Reductionist? Vulgar? Anti-humanistic?

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Appropriating ANT

• Social science gt ICT
• A GENUINE interest in the technology
• Backward gazing gt design
• Only after the dust has settled...
• Details gt basic notions
• Unstable, keeps changing

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Inscribing behaviour
ltltLeave the key!gtgt
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Inscribing behaviour
Leave the key
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Inscribing behaviour
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Inscriptions

• WHO inscribes
• WHAT is inscribed (which scenario)
• HOW is it inscribed (the material)
• STRENGTH of an inscription - does it succeed?

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Stabilization
Big wheel
Young men of nerves
speed
air
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Stabilization
Big wheel
Young men of nerves
speed
air
Women, Children, elderly
safety
springs
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Interpreting information systems

• Making the context concrete, specific
• Interpration through translations over time
• The interdependencies

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Context (I)
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Context (II)
M
Tue
W
Th
F
8 - 9
9 - 10
10 - 11
11 - 12
12 - 13
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Statoil The big picture (1992 - 1998)
1017
4104
8210
14209...
1993
1994
1995
1996
PES Norne
BRA BRU
K2000
plan economy internal market
new work practises
Lotus Windosw I-nett
Notes in Sdata
Domino
v4.0 alignment
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Ex. Lotus Notes in Statoil
20.000
10.000
5.000
1994
1996
1998
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Ex. Lotus Notes in Statoil
Norne
ISO 9000
Olje
1994
1996
1998
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Irreversibility

• Irreversibilitet - measuring how well-aligned the
  actor-network is
• How difficult it is to undo an earlier
  inscription
• To what extent future action is determined

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QWERTY
Q W E R T Y U I O P Å A S D F G H J K L Ø Æ
Z X C V B N M
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Changing a Jumbojet - in the air
Keep stable
secure investments Users skills
new requirements and new users
Change
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The mess
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IPv6

• The problem - and the challenge
• IETF - internet designers
• the pragmatics - how far is a small step?
• Illustrating negotiations

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The problem (I)

• Address space 232
• hierarchical

1 8 16
24 32
B
C
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The problem (II)
The currently unknown long-term solution
will require replacement and/or extension of the
Internet layer. This will be a significant
trauma for vendors, operators, and for users.
Therefore, it is particularly important that we
either minimize the trauma involved in deploying
the short-and mid-term solutions, or we need to
assure that the short- and mid-term solutions
will provide a smooth transition path for the
long-term solutions. (RFC 1992, p. 11)
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The problem (III)
I would strongly urge the customer/user community
to think about costs, training efforts, and
operational impacts of the various proposals and
PLEASE contribute those thoughts to the technical
process.

(Crocker 1992)
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Internet (I)

• The physical network
• The protocols
• The organization

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Internet (II)

• The board - IAB
• The government - IESG
• The parliament- IETF

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1992 - CLNP
We would like to express our strong support for
the decision made by the IAB with respect to
adopting CLNP as the basis for V7 of the
Internet Protocol. It is high time to
acknowledge that the Internet involves
significant investment from the computer
industry (both within the US and abroad), and
provides production services to an extremely
large and diverse population of users. Such and
environment dictates that decisions about
critical aspects of the Internet should lean
towards conservatism, and should clearly steer
away from proposals whose success is predicated
on some future research. While other than CLNP
proposals may on the surface sound tempting, the
Internet community should not close its eyes to
plain reality -- namely that at the present
moment these proposals are nothing more than just
proposals with no implementations, no
experience, and in few cases strong dependencies
on future research and funding. Resting the
Internet future on such foundation creates and
unjustifiable risk for the whole Internet
community. The decision made by the IAB clearly
demonstrated that the the IAB was able to go
beyond parochial arguments (TCP/IP vs CLNP), and
make its judgements based on practical and
pragmatic considerations. Yakov Rekhter (IBM
Corporation) Mark Knopper (Merit Network)
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CLNP - Stable?
How long do we think IP has been stable? It turns
out that one can give honestly different
answers. The base spec hasnÕt changed in a very
long time. On the other hand, people got
different implementations of some of the options
and it was not until relatively recently that
things stabilized. (TCP Urgent Pointer handling
was another prize. I think we got stable,
interoperable implementations universally
somewhere around 1988 or 89.)

(Crocker 1992)
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1994 - the compromise
CATNIP
(closest to OSI - but no experience)
SIPP
IPv6
(double address space)
CLNP
TUBA
(conservative transition plan)
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Distributing the costs
Key to understanding the notion of transition and
coexistence is the idea that any scheme has
associated with it a cost-distribution. That is,
some parts of the system are going to be affected
more than other parts. Sometimes there will be
a lot of changes sometimes a few. Sometimes the
changes will be spread out sometimes they will
be concentrated. In order to compare transition
schemes, you must compare their respective
cost-distribution and then balance that against
their benefits.

(Rose 1992b)