Physical and digital infrastructures have raised tensions around the world, seeding land disputes, climate effects, and disrupting social fabrics. Yet they are also intertwined with myths of progress, transformation, and speculation. What does this friction reveal? How can the stories we tell about infrastructures illuminate problems and lead us toward solutions? What do these stories say about where power lies and how it shifts? How might they help surface connections across nations, communities, and cultures?
Physical and digital infrastructures have raised tensions around the world, seeding land disputes, climate effects, and disrupting social fabrics. Yet they are also intertwined with myths of progress, transformation, and speculation. To explore these themes, we were joined by Nia Johnson, Ekene Ijeoma, and Lori Regattieri — academics, practitioners, and artists who are each, in their own way, responding to the ways digital infrastructures are transforming the built, natural, and social environments. In a conversation moderated by Trustworthy Infrastructures Program Director Maia Woluchem, we broke down confrontations between technological infrastructures and local communities and discussed how to reshape narratives of process, power, change, and futurity.
This public panel is part of Connective (t)Issues, a Data & Society workshop organized by the Trustworthy Infrastructures program in partnership with Duke Science & Society. Learn more about the workshop at datasociety.net.
https://datasociety.net/announcements/2024/11/20/connective-tissues/