Living Infrastructure

Kai Reimers () and Robert B. Johnston ()
Additional contact information
Kai Reimers: RWTH Aachen University
Robert B. Johnston: The University of Sydney

Chapter Chapter 12 in Collaboration in the Digital Age, 2019, pp 249-267 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Infrastructure is widely regarded merely as a material (lifeless) system that brings together the activities of diverse practices. In contrast to this view, we propose that when infrastructure provides a site where practices are held at once both near and apart, life under the influence of these practices is ‘lived to the full’. We call the resultant whole ‘living infrastructure’ to denote that it is both infrastructure for living and infrastructure that ‘lives’. The key idea is that a living infrastructure becomes the site where an opening between certain regions of life, which share some concern, happens. We will argue that such infrastructure is an on-going achievement of becoming, which requires nurturing and vigilance to maintain its continued productivity: otherwise it will cease to ‘live’. We present an empirical case from the German healthcare environment—the Federal Unified Medication Plan for medication therapy safety. We argue in detail that this is a nascent living infrastructure providing a site where a productive opening ‘happens’ between multiple practices involved in medication therapy safety. We analyse this ‘happening’ to establish how this opening took hold, how it was kept open, and how it was kept productive.

Keywords: Living Infrastructure; Median Plane; Undesirable Drug Effects; City Square; Coordination Group (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:prochp:978-3-319-94487-6_12

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783319944876

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-94487-6_12

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Progress in IS from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().