# On becoming an infrastructure: Personas of participation and intervention > [!tip] Reference > Paper by Mace Ojala and Fabian Pittroff on 2024-03-20 at Leakage: Inaugural Conference of stsing, TU Dresden, March 19–22nd 2024. ## Abstract Because there are multiple ways of doing research, one of the pressing challenges of transdisciplinary research clusters is their internal integration. Even within the humanities, disciplines speak and work differently. Especially in long-term research institutions, collaboration under a common program requires an ongoing process of linking diverse interests and practices. Additionally, contemporary research environments are virtual in many ways: every discipline uses at least some digital tools for coordination and data handling, and remote work is the new normal. This layer of virtuality is not just one more problem to solve, but a possible starting point to inquire about and foster integration. Our contribution draws from ongoing projects within a Collaborative Research Center (CRC), a long-term research institution consisting of dozens of subprojects. From within this context, we investigate practices of data handling and their infrastructures. The goal is to build a virtual research environment that enriches collaboration across the CRC. What distinguishes this infrastructure endeavor is the use of an ethnographic approach following an STS tradition (Suchman 1987, Star/Ruhleder 1995). Besides workshops and user studies inspired by participatory design (Simonsen/Robertson 2013), a key element of our inquiry is an embedded praxiography (Mol 2002) of the multiple ways in which research is being done at the institution in question. Our presentation will review how participatory and interventionist research such as this can benefit from the deployment of practical personas—virtual characters that STS ethnographers and infrastructure caretakers can enact to become an effective and creative agents of a common research environment. This includes the question of how data and knowledge can be leaked beyond the day-to-day work of small teams to benefit the cluster as a whole. For this purpose, we link our inquiries on virtual research practices with personas from STS literature and beyond, like the *Idiot* (Stengers), the *Trickster* (Haraway), the *Parasite* (Serres), the *Server* (Full Stack Feminism), the *Flâneur* (Benjamin), or even the *Leaker* (Snowden). Keywords: Data, Infrastructure, Collaboration, Persona, Virtuality ## Introduction & the site Hi there! Good to be here. This is Mace Ojala, I'm Fabian Pittroff. The talk is called *On becoming an infrastructure*. It is about the use of virtual personas for the research, design, and maintenance of infrastructures. These personas are fictional characters one can deploy or inhabit to help in your work. But before we get into these, let me describe the site we're working in. That is, the research institution we are working in *and* do research on. Both of us work at the CRC Virtual Lifeworlds at Ruhr-University Bochum. This is as so-called Collaborative Research Center – a long-term research institution consisting of dozens of subprojects. The common theme of our 50 or so members is *virtuality* in many shapes and colors. Involved are disciplines from Humanities, Cultural Studies, and the Social Sciences. A central paradigm of the CRC is its explicit *multiplicity*. There are art historians, literature studies, medievalists and others, and there is no streamlined description or method for what virtuality is or how it is being done. The both of us approach this site in an ethnographic manner. For this project, this means both participatory and intervening. So, this is the background against which the following was developed. Today, we'll present *three personas*, each of them for an ethnographer to deploy or inhabit in their work. The three we are talking about today are: the flâneur, the parasite, and the trans\*feminist server sysadmin. ### The flâneur Look! Over there! Do you see the *flâneur*! She has stopped to look at researchers of medieval history busy at work. What are they working on, are they studying a manuscript, or what is it? She observes the movements of their hands on the keyboard, the turns of phrase in their specialist discussions, the landscape of carefully organized icons, buttons and windows on the computer screens. Our flâneur is hesitating. It seems she considers approaching the medievalists. Perhaps they would take the time to let her in on their research. An improbable encounter. It would be a memento for the flâneur as she strolls through the research center, from office to office, from meeting to meeting. Each team busy with their own preoccupations, chiseling at some esoteric aspect of a research niche, mostly unbeknownst to one another. Oh, now something else has caught the eye of our flâneur: a colorful PDF file has been brought in by art theorists over there. Turning her attention away from the medievalists, she picks up her camera and her notebook, and surveys where she might get a better look at what the art theorists might do with their new object. ### The parasite Hold that picture of a site populated with somewhat isolated tribes from humanities, cultural studies and social sciences. Some do research on VR art, others work with robots, examine digital artifacts, and some just read texts after texts. Here, the infrastructure researchers' and designers' task is to connect these individuals and groups, help them exchange data as well as ideas. There are at least to parts to this mission: First, we want to understand and live with these tribes, observe their relations. Second, we also would like to influence, probably disturb, hopefully inspire their practices. This two-sided assignment summons the *parasite*, as described by Michel Serres. Like a *guest*, the parasite visits the homes of others, mostly invited, but they take without giving, attaches oneself to the flows of others. On the other hand, like a *noise* or an interference, the parasite disturbs and redirects these flows by being at odds with the situation – by *lateral moves*. The parasite will not only invite themselves as an observer or participant, but they will also try to shift what's going on. Yes ye, that is a nice working paper you wrote but instead of a PDF that no one can edit, why not make it an online pad with a link? Where do you write your drafts and notes in, actually? And how are they organised. What if we turned your ideas into data? How do we make them findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR)? ### The trans\*feminist server sysadmin There was a posting for a vacancy on our official website this morning. I will read it: Full Job Description: Collaborative Research Center "Virtuelle Lebenswelten" is looking for a trans\*feminist sysadmin who understands that computational infrastructure is more-than the tools or applications. One of the many things we are looking for in a sysadmin is that they can live (with us) in the ruins of Big Tech and academic excellence. This will be a collaborative, slow paced position, and you will be providing, and will be provided with support of all kinds. The good-enough candidate should be curious about Free, Libre and Open-Source software, low-power technologies, repairable tools, and solidarity infrastructures. We offer a co-defined, meandering path in money, responsibility, and h-index. The Position: As the trans\*feminist sysadmin, you will interrelate humanities research with Ruhr-University Bochum's technological infrastructure from within a non-hierarchical team, performing workarounds, and just good enough solutions. You can scope complex server imaginations and network infrastructure practices. Your role will contribute to continual transformation of research processes and standards that work towards incentives to consume less compute instead of more. Qualified candidates MUST have the desire to commit to a program of probably illegal counter-cloud-actions – with possibility to work under a pseudonym of your choice. Requirements to be applicable: Life Experience. Self-Education. Self-taught knowledge is preferred over university education from university bachelor, master or PhD programs. The research center is committed to reducing harm by the toxic, ableist, and oppressive expectations embedded in extractive legacies of humanities and social sciences research, and their educational programs. Confidence to try to really hard not to apologize for not being available. ## Generalised Problem To summarise, let's reflect on what we tried to do just now. What we proposed here, addresses the work of infrastructure researchers, designers, and maintainers. More specifically, our question is, *how to information infrastructure for a multitude of humanities scholars*? These humanities researchers are tasked to do something they cannot do on their own. So, connection is key. Of course, such a site and mission bring specific problems. Infrastructure might be the cause of some of these problems, but might also contain fixes for some of them. Here, our personas should be of help. For example, by making the distinction between what is a good problem and what is a bad fix. As such, they should be tools to raise unobvious questions. Let me give a tiny example. - A central object of our research is the *management of research data* (RDM) - Addressing the practices of humanities scholars as a mundane matter of data management is a particular movement - Which will be enacted differently by our three personas - Dispassionately spotted by the flâneur - Disturbingly added into the collaboration by a parasite - Caringly supported by a feminist server admin ## Methodological Reflections This is an ongoing work in progress. Personas are a familiar part of design tool sets, for instance in user experience design. In contrast, we use personas not to describe users but designers and maintainers of infrastructure, and our personas do not primarily originate from our empirical research mainly, but from literature, theory, and critical, collaborative artistic practice, respectively. How did we build these? The flâneur: written based on Walter Benjamin and Frédéric Gros. The parasite: based on Michel Serres' theories. The trans\*feminist server sysadmin: adapted and re-situated from an actual job-posting by a digital activist-artist collectives NEoN, in collaboration with *The Institute for Technology in the Public Interest* (TITiPI). However, like personas in design, ours aren't descriptions or representations, but tools that should be productive and foreground new questions and "troubles". Ok, so to conclude and to move towards discussion and listening to what the other presenters Daniela Zetti and Julie Mewes have brought us. We encourage you to invite these three personas onto your field, your research collaborations, especially into your infrastructure projects. But also: Build your own personas! We would like to hear if you already made one, and what they do for you. ## References * Benjamin, Walter. (1940). *On some motifs in Baudelaire*. * Dix, Alan et al. (2004). *Human-Computer Interaction*. * Dörk, Marian et al. (2011). *The Information Flaneur*. * Feminist Server Summit (2014). *A Feminist Server Manifesto 0.01.* [constantvzw.org](https://areyoubeingserved.constantvzw.org/Summit_afterlife.xhtml) * Gros, Frédéric. (2015). *A Philosophy of Walking*. * Serres, Michel. (1990). *The Parasite*. * TITiPI (2022). *NEoN Trans\*Feminist Counter Cloud Action Plan*. [titipi.org](https://titipi.org/wiki/index.php/Counter_Cloud_Action_Plan#Vacancy:_trans*feminist_sys-admin)