[open-science] Infrastructure is Invisible / Infrastructure is Law

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Hi all,

(Sorry in advance for the self-promotion)

Just to let you know about a new post on the OpenAIRE blog that might be of interest to list members: "Infrastructure is Invisible / Infrastructure is Law"<https://blogs.openaire.eu/?p=979>

TL;DR: As both Geoffrey Bilder and Martin Heidegger tell us, infrastructure is usually invisible and we only notice it when something goes wrong. This is profoundly problematic for scholarly communications, since infrastructure is also law - it shapes thoughts and actions. Luckily, moments of breakdown (like the SSRN sell-off) help illuminate problems with the system and call on us to change what is broken.

Excerpt: "moments of breakdown can be illuminative. Casting off the fog of the everyday, they allow us to see our tools anew and to appreciate how integral they are to our lives. They can also be cathartic occasions for reappraisal, for rethinking the nature of this invisible infrastructure in which we usually unthinkingly invest our trust. We must seize such moments constructively. The "blue screen of death," for example, is a reminder to practice good research data management in the future (and maybe think about switching to LINUX or Apple). SSRN's sell-off, as I've said elsewhere<https://blogs.openaire.eu/?p=933>, is an opportunity to reassess the role of such platforms in the research endeavor and to discuss anew the kinds of governance safeguards we should demand from them. Such reflection is crucial, because although it is boring or often invisible, infrastructure pays a constitutive role in scientific discourse, which is to say: infrastructure is law."

Thanks, Tony

Dr. Tony Ross-Hellauer

OpenAIRE<https://www.openaire.eu/> Scientific Manager
University of Göttingen
Email: ross-hellauer at sub.uni-goettingen.de<mailto:ross-hellauer at sub.uni-goettingen.de>
Tel: +49 551 39-31818
Twitter: @tonyR_H<https://twitter.com/tonyR_H>

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