Infrastructuring and the challenge of dynamic seams in mobile knowledge work

Ingrid Erickson; Mohammad Hossein Jarrahi

doi:10.1145/2818048.2820015

Infrastructuring and the challenge of dynamic seams in mobile knowledge work

Ingrid Erickson, Mohammad Hossein Jarrahi

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

21 Scopus citations

Abstract

Highly mobile knowledge workers spend a large portion of their time traversing within and among different infrastructural configurations as they move through space. These dynamic configurations are experienced as either technological or contextual constraints, which range from forms of technological exclusion and infrastructural disconnection to divides caused by both spatial and organizational boundaries. The workaday nature of these constrained environments force mobile workers to engage in a type of articulation work that involves the construction of bridging, assembling, or circumventing solutions to repeatedly negotiate these impediments. Engaging in these 'infrastructuring' practices requires that workers develop 'infrastructural competence'-knowledge of the generative possibilities of infrastructural seams. In effect, this renders mobile workers as infrastructural bricoleurs. We discuss the implications of this required competence and speculate regarding its origin, maintenance, and differentiation among professions.

Original language	English (US)
Title of host publication	Proceedings of the 19th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, CSCW 2016
Publisher	Association for Computing Machinery
Pages	1323-1336
Number of pages	14
Volume	27
ISBN (Electronic)	9781450335928
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/2818048.2820015
State	Published - Feb 27 2016
Externally published	Yes
Event	19th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, CSCW 2016 - San Francisco, United States Duration: Feb 27 2016 → Mar 2 2016

Other

Other	19th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, CSCW 2016
Country	United States
City	San Francisco
Period	2/27/16 → 3/2/16

Keywords

Infrastructure
Knowledge work
Mobile technology
Sociotechnical
Ubiquitous computing

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Software
Human-Computer Interaction
Computer Networks and Communications

Access to Document

10.1145/2818048.2820015

Cite this

Infrastructuring and the challenge of dynamic seams in mobile knowledge work. / Erickson, Ingrid; Jarrahi, Mohammad Hossein.

Proceedings of the 19th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, CSCW 2016. Vol. 27 Association for Computing Machinery, 2016. p. 1323-1336.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

Erickson, I & Jarrahi, MH 2016, Infrastructuring and the challenge of dynamic seams in mobile knowledge work. in Proceedings of the 19th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, CSCW 2016. vol. 27, Association for Computing Machinery, pp. 1323-1336, 19th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, CSCW 2016, San Francisco, United States, 2/27/16. https://doi.org/10.1145/2818048.2820015

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