Spatial Data Infrastructuring: praxis between dilemmas

The paper argues that SDI can best be understood in terms of praxis more than as technological artefact. Because of the many different and often conflicting views of reality, interests and other values between the many heterogeneous actors that are involved, SDI development causes inevitably paradoxes and dilemmas. The paper assumes that SDI is context specific but also has the generic properties for any networked assembly. The paper also assumes that understanding SDI comes predominantly from four perspectives; the public policy and governance discourse, and the information systems discourse as contextspecific perspectives, and actor-networking and transdisciplinarity as generic perspectives. The paper concludes that SDI development must be based on creating and maintaining between the actors a shared view of the reality of the emerging SDI initiative. The paper suggests a prudent and reflexive approach in SDI development based on practical common sense and ethnographic methods.