Year: 2019
Type: article
Abstract: Getting a divorce. Being diagnosed with a disease. Going through a relationship breakup. Living through a natural disaster. All of these events are often life disrupting and debilitating. While some disruptive events are short-lived, some can be a routine part of everyday life. This leads to the question of how people who experience prolonged disruption in their lives build resilience---that is, how do they manage and overcome such events? To explore this question, this paper utilizes a case study approach to explore the use, creation, and re-appropriation of technology across three prolonged disruptions-the Second Gulf War in Iraq, veteran transitions, and the coming out experiences of LGBTQ-identifying people. Using a conceptual frame that brings together routine dynamics and infrastructuring, we find that engaging in routine infrastructuring practices generated resilience in people's daily lives---a phenomenon we dub 'routine infrastructuring' as 'building everyday resilience with technology.' We then theorize properties of infrastructure and infrastructuring practice that enable resiliency, and conclude with how infrastructuring is a form of care work that is oriented towards individuals, communities, and society.
DOI: 10.1145/3359175
Author: Bryan Semaan
Institution: Syracuse University
Language: English
Subfield: Management Information Systems
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
Funder: National Science Foundation
OpenAlex ID: W2984985665