From Artifacts to Infrastructures in Studies of Learning Practices

Abstract

This article addresses how Leigh Star’s notion of infrastructure as ecological and relational to organized practices can inform studies of learning practices and help understand the role that networked technologies play in such practices. A discussion of the relation between the view of technologies as mediating artifacts and as infrastructures is presented. Star’s work on infrastructure is also discussed in the light of debates in information systems research and computer-supported cooperative work. The article presents an empirical study of workplace learning as an illustrative example of how this notion can be brought to bear upon analyses of learning practices.