Ethnography of scaling, or, how to a fit a national research infrastructure in the room

Authors:
David Ribes
Affiliations:
Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA
Venue:
Proceedings of the 17th ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work & social computing
Year:
2014

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Abstract

Ethnographers have traditionally studied people in particular times and places. However, sociotechnical systems are often long-term enterprises, spanning the globe and serving vast communities. Drawing from three cases of research infrastructure development, this paper demonstrates a methodology in which the ethnographer examines scalar devices: actors' techniques and technologies for knowing and managing large-scale enterprises. Such devices are enacted in and across concrete times and places; for the ethnographer they are observable as activities of scaling. By examining the enactment of scale we can better investigate diverse kinds of size and growth within sociotechnical systems.