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<div style="direction: ltr;font-family: Tahoma;color: #000000;font-size: 10pt;">Just a reminder: we are using a set of words with different meanings developed by different kinds of experts in different sub/fields, some of whom do not know the other meanings,
nor why they developed. At least since the 1930s there also have been multiple kinds of territorial 'boundary maintenance' around/within some of those terms by those aware of the various terms and their histories. Some of the multiple meanings, their histories,
and their affiliated communities of expertise intersect in some infrastructure studies.
<br>
<br>
Here are a few of the distinctions, as drawn by our colleagues writing essays for wikipedia:<br>
Criticality <font size="3"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticality" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticality</a></font>
<br>
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticality_index" title="Criticality index">Criticality index</a><br>
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticality_matrix" title="Criticality matrix">Criticality matrix</a><br>
Critical theory <font size="3"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_theory" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_theory</a></font><br>
"... As a term, <i>critical theory</i> has two meanings. with different origins and histories: the first originated in
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociology" title="Sociology">sociology</a> and
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_philosophy" title="Political philosophy">
political philosophy</a>, while the second originated in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_studies" class="mw-redirect" title="Literary studies">
literary studies</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_theory" title="Literary theory">
literary theory</a>. ... While they can be considered completely independent intellectual pursuits, increasingly scholars are interested in the areas of critique where the two overlap. ..."
<font size="3"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_theory" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_theory</a>
</font><br>
Note too the differences between/within modernist, postmodern, and current critical theory
<font size="4"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_theory#Postmodern_critical_theory" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_theory#Postmodern_critical_theory</a></font>
<br>
<div>See also these links, among others, listed as "subfields" at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_theory" target="_blank">
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_theory</a> <br>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_ethnography" title="Critical ethnography">Critical ethnography</a></li><li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_legal_studies" title="Critical legal studies">Critical legal studies</a></li><li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_management_studies" title="Critical management studies">Critical management studies</a></li><li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_pedagogy" title="Critical pedagogy">Critical pedagogy</a></li><li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_philosophy" title="Critical philosophy">Critical philosophy</a></li><li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_psychiatry" class="mw-redirect" title="Critical psychiatry">Critical psychiatry</a></li><li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_psychology" title="Critical psychology">Critical psychology</a></li><li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory" title="Critical race theory">Critical race theory</a></li><li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_studies" title="Cultural studies">Cultural studies</a></li></ul>
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<div style="direction: ltr;" id="divRpF280485"><font face="Tahoma" color="#000000" size="2"><b>From:</b> Members [members-bounces@lists.sigcis.org] on behalf of Alberts, Gerard [G.Alberts@uva.nl]<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Tuesday, August 23, 2016 3:27 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> Thomas Haigh; 'Lori Emerson'<br>
<b>Cc:</b> members@lists.sigcis.org<br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Call for Ideas!<br>
</font><br>
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<font size="4">Eh, but Tom, aren't getting off on a tangent here? </font>
<div><font size="4">I agree with Brian that "critical" in this context is an adjective to infrastructures, not to the study of it -even if we do not have to exclude to possibility of a critical theory of infrastructures.
</font><font size="4">Infrastructures were deemed critical by those who observed that the breakdown of such infrastructures would bring the whole of society to a standstill. I would think, the high voltage power networks were the key example. Whether the expression
"critical infrastructure" was brought into the debate by military strategists, political scientists, anthropologists or by those building the networks, I do not know. Interesting historical question. Of equal interest is when and by whom IT-infrastructures
were considered so crucially important, that they were called "critical".</font><font size="4"> Gerard
<span class=""></span></font><br>
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<font size="4"><span class="">________________________________________<br>
<font size="3">From: Members [members-bounces@lists.sigcis.org] on behalf of Brian Randell [brian.randell@newcastle.ac.uk]<br>
Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2016 3:22 PM<br>
To: Thomas Haigh<br>
Cc: members@lists.sigcis.org<br>
Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Call for Ideas!</font><br>
Hi Tom:<br>
<br>
In the research communities I inhabit the meaning that would be attached to “critical infrastructure studies” is “studies of critical infrastructure” not “critical studies of infrastructure”.<br>
<br>
Further, “critical infrastructure” typically concerns "critical national infrastructure”, such as the electricity grid - see http://www.cpni.gov.uk/about/cni/ or on your side of the Atlantic - https://www.dhs.gov/what-critical-infrastructure<br>
<br>
As regards the word “infrastructure”, here is a summary explanation that I and my computer science colleagues have used:<br>
<br>
•Infrastructure is by definition reusable by different individuals/organizations for different purposes on different occasions.<br>
•Not all of these uses are known to, or even the concern of, the designer(s) of the infrastructure who must create something which will respond to and support uses that have not yet been conceived.<br>
•Infrastructures need to be capacity engineered - so that the amount of resource can be changed to meet current and expected demand.<br>
•Over-deployment endangers the supplier, under-deployment frustrates the user.<br>
•One organization’s system often becomes another organization’s infrastructure.<br>
<br>
Cheers<br>
Brian<br>
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<div id="divRpF930203" style="direction:ltr"><font face="Tahoma" color="#000000" size="2"><font size="3">From: Members [members-bounces@lists.sigcis.org] on behalf of Thomas Haigh [thomas.haigh@gmail.com]<br>
Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2016 2:42 PM<br>
To: 'Lori Emerson'<br>
Cc: members@lists.sigcis.org<br>
Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Call for Ideas!</font><br>
</font><br>
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<div class="WordSection1">
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="4"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"> I don’t think critical adds a whole lot to “infrastructure studies.” It has some usefulness in formulations like “critical management studies” (a thing in
Northern Europe but no so much in the US) as management scholarship is usually uncritical in every sense of the word. So “critical” demarcates a scholarly community deliberately taking a unorthodox approaches to challenge the assumptions of the field.
<a href="http://www.criticalmanagement.org/content/about-cms" target="_blank"><font size="3">http://www.criticalmanagement.org/content/about-cms</font></a>
</span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="4"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"> </span></font><font size="4"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"> But science studies, STS, media studies, etc. manage to embrace
a variety of socially and culturally informed perspectives without their practitioners needing to add the “critical” in front of them. Adding “critical” might be seen as a challenge to those currently embracing “infrastructure studies” as a scholarly identity.
There’s also the question of whether “critical” means critical as in “critical thinking” or as in “critical theory,” and while critical theory certainly has a place among other approaches in the study of infrastructure not everyone would feel comfortable with
the suggestion that it should be elevated over approaches grounded in STS, history, sociology, anthropology, etc.</span></font><font size="4">
</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="4"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"> </span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="4"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Best wishes,</span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="4"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Tom</span></font><font size="4"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"> </span></font><font size="4">
</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><font face="Tahoma" color="#000000" size="2"><font size="3"><font face="Tahoma" color="#000000" size="2"><font size="4">_____________________________</font><font size="4">________________</font></font></font></font></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">From:</span><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"> Members [mailto:members-bounces@lists.sigcis.org] On Behalf Of Lori Emerson<br>
Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2016 1:39 PM<br>
To: Paul N. Edwards <pne@umich.edu><br>
Cc: Dag Spicer <dspicer@computerhistory.org>; members@lists.sigcis.org<br>
Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Call for Ideas!</span></font></p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="4">Dear all, I just wanted to thank you for sending in these great resources for infrastructure studies - I came across the term "critical infrastructure studies" a couple months ago and got quite excited about how it seemed
more expansive and more useful for describing my projects on labs and the pre-history of the internet than either "media archaeology" or just "media studies." But now I wonder what the extra "critical" denotes since there's a somewhat well established field
already of I.S.? Any thoughts?</font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="4">yours, Lori</font></p>
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