Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) Annual Meeting; Seattle, Washington

Conference: Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) Annual Meeting; Seattle, Washington - September 3 – 6, 2025

Presentation: Beyond the Physical: Reimagining Territory Through Digital Infrastructure

REPORT:

I presented at the 4S conference on the panel “Autonomy and Agency in the Age of Digital Infrastructures,” organized by Ana Viseu from ICNOVA - Universidade NOVA de Lisboa. My presentation explored performative autonomy in digital infrastructures and examined how technological systems demonstrate their value through efficiency and service delivery while reshaping the social fabric around them. The core argument focused on how digital systems gain legitimacy through successfully performing useful functions, making their integration appear natural and necessary. The concept emerged from observing how digital infrastructures present themselves as neutral tools for improving service delivery in healthcare, education, and commerce while creating new forms of dependency and reconfiguring relationships between citizens and institutions. These systems perform autonomy by appearing to operate independently, but require extensive networks of human labor, maintenance, and care to function. This performance becomes interesting when examining how communities adapt these technologies for purposes beyond their original design.

Our panel brought together diverse perspectives on technological autonomy. Ana Viseu’s research on autonomous stores in Portugal demonstrated how retail automation promises consumer freedom while creating new patterns of consumption and behavior. Another presenter examined robotic systems in design spaces, showing how claims of machine independence obscure the intensive human work required to maintain these systems. The discussion showed a consistent pattern: technologies marketed as autonomous create interdependencies between humans, machines, and institutions. These interdependencies are inherent features of how technological systems integrate into social life.

Janet Vertesi’s workshop “How To Get Off: Collective and Individual Techniques for Abandoning Big Tech Infrastructures” provided practical tools for data sovereignty and collective governance. The workshop taught participants how to scatter their digital traces across multiple platforms rather than concentrating data in single ecosystems, and explored what she calls “infrastructural inversions” which involves using the difficulty and friction of avoiding certain technologies as a way to understand how embedded these systems have become in daily life. Vertesi led us through five specific activities for reclaiming data control, from choosing alternative browsers and search engines to understanding metadata trails. Her approach combines technical knowledge from critical computing with practical strategies developed through her own decade-long experiments in avoiding major technology platforms. The workshop emphasized that individual privacy efforts are insufficient; communities need collective strategies and shared resources to maintain data sovereignty effectively.

Lucy Suchman’s presence at the conference brought decades of perspective to these questions. Her participation in the “Reverberant Worlding” panel highlighted experimental approaches to studying technological systems. The panel explored methods that examine what actually happens when systems are implemented versus what they claim to do. The panelists presented various experimental methods for understanding how technological systems construct knowledge and meaning, including innovative approaches to studying environmental data and technological mediation.

The conference theme of “Reverberations” encouraged thinking about technology’s ripple effects. The keynote panels demonstrated how technologies developed for specific purposes spread and transform across different contexts. Creative communities repurpose commercial platforms for art and memory projects. Environmental monitoring tools designed for scientific research become instruments for community advocacy. Educational technologies created for formal schooling find new life in informal learning spaces. These adaptations show communities actively reshaping technological systems. Beyond the formal sessions, exchanges with other researchers were valuable for developing my research. Conversations with graduate students working on platform cooperatives showed how communities create alternative technological arrangements that prioritize collective benefit over efficiency metrics. Researchers studying digital inclusion initiatives shared insights about how successful technology adoption depends on aligning with existing social structures. These exchanges highlighted the importance of studying how technologies are maintained, adapted, and sometimes resisted by the communities they serve.

These discussions throughout the conference reinforced that understanding digital infrastructures requires examining the gap between their claims and their effects. Technologies that promise to enhance autonomy often create new dependencies. Systems designed for efficiency may introduce new inefficiencies elsewhere. Platforms meant to connect can also isolate. These paradoxes are fundamental to how technological systems operate in complex social environments. For the Kellogg Institute’s focus on development and human flourishing, these insights have direct relevance. Development initiatives increasingly involve technological components, yet success depends on understanding how communities will actually use, adapt, or resist these technologies. The conference demonstrated that meaningful technological development requires attention to local knowledge, existing social structures, and community priorities rather than assuming universal solutions.