Networks of care: Maintaining campus information infrastructures in turbulent times

Keywords: digital labor, information infrastructure, care
Session Type: Virtual Paper
Day: Sunday
Session Start / End Time: 4/11/2021 09:35 AM (Pacific Time (US & Canada)) - 4/11/2021 10:50 AM (Pacific Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 34

Abstract

In 2018 there was an estimated 8.4 billion Internet of Things (IoT) devices in use and some models show that number reaching the trillions by 2023. The technology being introduced into the built environment is changing the relationship between these spaces and those who work to maintain them. This is in turn implicating the nature of this work. Because the work to maintain these spaces, and the technologies that are increasingly embedded in them, are going through a process of rapid transformation, there is a need to investigate emerging data security and privacy issues that ensue. Emerging fieldwork from a large university setting provides evidence to suggest that in light of COVID-19 the cohort of workers tasked with maintaining these dynamic information infrastructures is being strained in its capacity to do this work effectively. This paper will explore these labors through the politics of care. Efforts to reopen universities are fundamentally shifting the relationship between its occupants and their spatial relationship to the campus. In turn, this is shifting the work of caretakers of the built environment to consider the health and safety concerns of occupants. This shift includes an expansion beyond traditional concerns with efficiency, cybersecurity, and functionality, to also encompass a higher level of control in terms of occupancy and pandemic response protocols.