Search Results for: scale

Major Internet Outages are Getting Bigger and Occurring More Often: A Reflection on the CrowdStrike IT Outage

A.R.E. Taylor February 18, 2025
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At 09:30 a.m. BST on 19 July 2024, IT systems around the world suddenly ground to a halt. Without their computer systems, pharmacies, doctors’ surgeries, airports, train providers, and banks, among other critical services, were unable to operate. Websites and entertainment platforms went offline. Supermarket deliveries were cancelled. Retailers’ payment systems were unable to process transactions. Emergency services were disrupted. TV Channels were unable to air. (read more...)

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Disruptions in Grace: Embracing Mutation and Disability in Nature through Art

Emery Vanderburgh February 6, 2025
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Gripping tightly onto a walking stick, I slowly and precariously make my way through the forest. Careful not to catch my prosthetic foot on the exposed roots, I’m scanning the ground when I see a disfigured branch, gnarled, with burls and nodules on it. These masses—called “galls”—are a common growth mutation that can be caused by various factors: bacteria, insects, and rapid changes in weather. I grew up on a fruit tree farm, so I’ve seen this before, but a different familiarity, like a kinship, spurred me to take the branch home. I soon became obsessed with the idea of “tree tumors” and the aesthetics of mutation in nature as a beautiful and intriguing expression of disease and disability. They evoked memories of the way seeing my medical scans eased the abject fear of my cancer – even though the scans felt alien and depersonalized from me, they offered a concrete visual anchor that demystified my diagnosis. (read more...)

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Thinking with Epistemic Things: Quality and its Consequences in Agri-Commodities Markets

Amrita Kurian January 28, 2025
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This is a thought experiment on the consequences of technical rationality, the dominant epistemology of practice that tells us that “professional activity consists in instrumental problem solving made rigorous by the application of scientific theory and technique” (Schön 2017, 22). My aim is not to demonize technical rationality at the outset. Instead, I attempt to lay out the stakes of such a project when scaled beyond the confines of the spaces where experts conceive them. What happens when an “epistemic thing”—an unstable, experimental object of scientific research—is taken out of the controlled confines of the lab or the pages collated from a scientific symposium and introduced into the real world (Rheinberger 1997)? To borrow Anna Tsing’s phrasing, what happens when you increase the scale of an experiment without altering its frame for the differences encountered in the real world (Tsing 2015, 38; 2019, 506)? (read more...)

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Swimming Against the Current: Navigating Distrust in Open Science

Valerie Berseth December 17, 2024
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This post is part of a series on the SEEKCommons project; read the Introduction to the series to learn more. On a cool autumn day in Vancouver, I took my car, a warm coffee tumbler in hand, and drove into the woods to witness the return of salmon to their spawning grounds. I followed highways and dirt roads to the Adams River, where dense forest meets fast-moving water. I was there for the Salute to the Sockeye—a festival that gathers people from all walks of life every four years, when sockeye salmon are returning in the largest numbers of their four-year life cycle. Every year, salmon return after spending two to three years in the ocean navigating past rocks, hungry bears, eagles, fishing hooks, and even waterfalls. They push forward bit by bit, against the odds, to reach the precise place they were born where they spawn and die. Scientists don’t fully understand how salmon navigate this long, upstream journey, but we know they rely on subtle cues from the earth’s magnetic fields and the river’s chemistry to guide them home. (read more...)

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Common(s) in Science and Technology? Dispatches from the SEEKCommons Network

Insha Bint Bashir, Luis Felipe R. Murillo, Matias Milia December 17, 2024
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This is the Introduction post to our new SEEKCommons series. The posts in this series are forthcoming, and will be linked here in this Introduction as they are published over the next several months. What does the “common(s)” mean for the present and future of science and technology? Are there novel dynamics at play in how knowledge infrastructures are being built, controlled, and contested today? It is with the goal of exploring these interconnected questions that we conceived of the Socio-Environmental Knowledge Commons (SEEKCommons) network—a collective platform where the “common” stands as a political horizon for collaborative social, technical, and environmental work. (read more...)

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Maintenance of Forest Restoration: The Fragility of Promised Futures

Syed Shoaib Ali December 10, 2024

As a growing area of inquiry in STS, maintenance studies brings two critical insights to the post-Actor Network Theory (ANT) landscape. First, relations are not a state of nature, but once established, take a great amount of ongoing, behind-the-scenes effort to maintain and mend (Star, 1991; Denis and Pontille, 2019). Second, a greater locus of scientific research and innovation is invested in the assemblies of maintenance and repair than in the creation of novel ones (Edgerton, 2011). Stability is ever produced through a constant recognition and remediation of the material fragility of things (Denis & Pontille, 2023). In their seminal article in Theory, Culture & Society, Graham and Thrift (2007) dug forth the ever-expanding arena of maintenance and repair that constitute infrastructures and objects which otherwise remain invisible to the public eye, doing their job. Moments of breakdown cast socially unacceptable ruptures in the fabric of life, inviting all forms of labor, learning, and innovation to keep going. Their dig on the inevitable politics of maintenance, “to invent the train is to also invent the train crash” (p. 4), struck me as a gut-churning reflection on the state of Himalayan forests in the aftermath of large-scale tree plantation programs. On one hand, global afforestation and nature restoration programs aim to repair the historical excesses of extractive industry and empire. On the other hand, the science which guides these programs tends to be far removed from the place, history, and nature of the contagion. This dissonance instills a deep sense of fragility on the promise of restored futures in the Global South. What if the “politics of maintenance” never takes place, and rural populations are forced to live with the inevitable crash? (read more...)

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“Work together, eat bread together”: Stardew Valley and the Dream of the Commons

Henry Snow December 3, 2024
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“There will come a day,” proclaims the player character’s grandfather in the popular video game Stardew Valley, “when you feel crushed by the burden of modern life . . . and your bright spirit will fade before a growing emptiness.” Several centuries before the game’s release, 17th-century English radical Gerrard Winstanley explained that the English peasant “looks upon himself as imperfect, and so is dejected in his spirit, and looks upon his fellow Creature of his own Image, as a Lord above him.” Winstanley and Grandpa propose similar solutions: farming. Modernity is the “thieving power” of the landlord and the insipid consumerism of Stardew’s Joja Corporation—an obvious Amazon analog, down to the eerie smile in its logo and the resigned but-the-prices-are-so-low loyalty its uneasy customers display. The farm, by contrast, is a place for spiritual regeneration via hard work. Grandpa sends you there to grow crops and tend animals, while Winstanley’s Digger movement began cultivating land together. (read more...)

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Green Lady Cambodia: A Small Initiative for A Big Change on Menstrual Health and Hygiene Education

Aikaterini Mitselou, Isabell Hedke November 21, 2024
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Authors’ Note: The following essay uses the words “women” and “girls” in order to mirror the phrasing and experiences of cited literature as well as the responses of the participants in our studies. We wanted to represent and relay the insights provided by all parties in the manner in which they were expressed to us directly or as they were published. This wording was not chosen to deliberately exclude the range of people who experience menstruation in Cambodia and around the world, as we recognise and understand that menstruation is not a gender-specific experience by any means. If anything, we support that MHH is an effort to be tackled by all. Achieving menstrual health is crucial for attaining good health and well-being, ensuring quality education and promoting gender equality. Although it is slowly gaining recognition on a global scale, menstrual health and hygiene (MHH) needs are still not met in many countries. Particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), many girls are not informed or prepared before experiencing their first period (Chandra-Mouli & Patel, 2017). In Cambodia, girls and women follow strong cultural beliefs about menstruation, such as avoiding certain foods and drinks when on period (Sommer et al., 2014). Information is seldomly provided, as the topic is not openly discussed at home and teachers lack confidence to educate about reproductive health (Conolly & Sommer, 2013). WASH infrastructure in schools is inadequate with not enough toilets and a lack of privacy, leading to feelings of discomfort and avoidance of facilities (Sommer et al., 2014, Conolly & Sommer, 2013). This results in menstrual accidents like leakages, and being labeled as unhygienic (Daniels et al., 2022). If MHH needs are not met, girls experience fear and shyness throughout menstruation, impacting their lives by having to miss social activities, transit locations to change sanitary pads, and missing school days (Daniels et al., 2022).  (read more...)

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