Infrastructures and Their Discontents: Implications for Ubicomp

Infrastructures (persistent socio-technical systems over which services are delivered) are normally taken for granted by their users, but are powerful forces of constraint and enablement with implications for the design, use, and adoption of ubiquitous computing. To approach the study of infrastructure from an ethnographic perspective, we conducted an exploratory field study of people for whom infrastructure had become visible due to some form of active engagement (rejecting, augmenting, or caretaking). From considering together individuals as disparate as homeschoolers, gated community dwellers, and voluntary simplicity advocates, a number of challenges and opportunities for ubicomp emerged in terms of appropriation, empowerment, and reflection.