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Infrastructuring as a Planetary Phenomenon: Timescale Separation and Causal Closure in More-Than-Human Systems
Infrastructuring als planetarisches Phänomen: Zeitskalentrennung und kausale Schließung in mehr-als-menschlichen Systemen
[journal article]
Abstract Building on recent work identifying how the infrastructures of human social and economic life themselves depend on the "natural infrastructure" of biogeochemical systems, I explore the idea that infrastructuring - involving causal relations between subsystems operating at different timescales - migh... view more
Building on recent work identifying how the infrastructures of human social and economic life themselves depend on the "natural infrastructure" of biogeochemical systems, I explore the idea that infrastructuring - involving causal relations between subsystems operating at different timescales - might be a strategy widely adopted by matter undergoing self-organization under planetary conditions. I analyze the concept of infrastructure as it is used to describe features of the human "technosphere" and identify the importance of a difference in timescales between supporting and supported structures and processes. I explore some examples of how the wider planet might be said to engage in timescale-distancing and infrastructuring, focusing in particular on examples from the hydrosphere and biosphere. I then turn to the question of how to explain infrastructuring, developing a neocybernetic account of infrastructuring as involving the separation of a system into subsystems at different timescales in mutual but asymmetrical causal relations. I conclude by exploring the implications of this approach for the way we think about planets in general and the human technosphere.... view less
Classification
Sociology of Science, Sociology of Technology, Research on Science and Technology
Free Keywords
infrastructure; infrastructuring; timescales; neocybernetics; second-order cybernetics; closure to efficient causation; autopoiesis; planetary social thought; technosphere
Document language
English
Publication Year
2022
Page/Pages
p. 193-214
Journal
Historical Social Research, 47 (2022) 4
Issue topic
Ruptures, Transformations, Continuities: Rethinking Infrastructures and Ecology
ISSN
0172-6404
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed