Designing and domesticating an interstructure: Exploring the practices and the politics of an elevator for cyclists

Ivana Suboticki,Knut H. Sørensen

doi:10.1177/0042098020910334

Abstract

Technologies called infrastructures are often considered to be inherently and opaquely political, but how they exert their politics has been both empirically and conceptually debated. Infrastructure studies have largely focused on (in)visibility or ‘infra’ qualities as central criteria for assessing who and what is included and excluded, and when. In this paper we argue that this binary is unproductive and propose the concept of interstructure to highlight the connective and aesthetic qualities of technologies as well as their political features. These features may be quite transparent but also ambivalent, which we demonstrate by analysing an elevator for cyclists in Belgrade, Serbia. We draw on material semiotics to unpack the practices, the sense-making and the political work of this elevator in relation to its design and use. The analysis is based on interviews and an observation study. It shows that the elevator elicited substantial articulation work among most users as well as the operators who ran it. The elevator’s politics were produced through continuous negotiations among actors with partial views. Unpredictable connections captured a clearly ambivalent politics. We conclude by arguing that similar political dynamics may be present in transport and urban technologies more generally and that the concept of interstructure offers a fruitful avenue to study them and their politics.

Highlights

Exploring the politics of urban technologiesTransport technologies such as roads and bridges are critical to modern life
Rationales for design of urban materiality such as bicycle lanes shape mobility practice (Koglin, 2017; Koglin and Rye, 2014) while cyclists influence existing physical structures through their use (Latham and Wood, 2015). To engage in such exploration of an interstructure such as the bike elevator we use the material-semiotic concepts of script (Akrich, 1992), programme/antiprogramme (Latour, 1992) and domestication (Sørensen, 2006). These concepts facilitate the analysis of complexes of designer–technology–user relations to identify the politics of transport interstructures
We look for collective domestication efforts to explore the alignment of the politics of the elevator for cyclists

Summary

Introduction

Transport technologies such as roads and bridges are critical to modern life. Often, they are conceptualised as infrastructures, as something ‘underneath’ that facilitates human activities. Shove et al (2015: 280) remind us that many infrastructures are connective; they link people and places in ways that reflect political values and political work Based on this observation and wanting to avoid a limiting reference to (in)visibility, we propose to analyse transport technologies as interstructures rather than infrastructures. To engage in such exploration of an interstructure such as the bike elevator we use the material-semiotic concepts of script (Akrich, 1992), programme/antiprogramme (Latour, 1992) and domestication (Sørensen, 2006) Together, these concepts facilitate the analysis of complexes of designer–technology–user relations to identify the politics of transport interstructures. In line with the arguments of Joerges (1999) and Woolgar and Cooper (1999), the three material-semiotic concepts guide the exploration of the negotiations, protests and changes of the politics of interstructures through their use

Method

Findings

Conclusion