Scalable Information Networks for the Environment The social dimension of scaleable information networks for the environment Geoffrey C. Bowker

OECD Working Group on Access to Publicly Funded Research OECD Group includes Peter Arzberger, Geof Bowker, Paul Uhlir from the US LTER – study of information practices (with Karen Baker, SIO)`

Scalable Information Networks for the Environment The world of information is messy…

Scalable Information Networks for the Environment And the cleanup won’t be easy

Scalable Information Networks for the Environment Sharing Knowledge at a Distance

Scalable Information Networks for the Environment The Technology of the Archive

Scalable Information Networks for the Environment The Scientific Archive  scientific papers are no longer the main result of a scientific project  the distributed database is becoming a new model form of scientific publication in its own right  the negotiation of data standards is a central site for political and ethical work in this process

Scalable Information Networks for the Environment Standardizing the World…  Whose standards? Whose standards? Whose standards?  It's surrogates all the way down It's surrogates all the way down It's surrogates all the way down

Scalable Information Networks for the Environment Folding narratives into databases  European bias in classification systems  Presentism  She who controls the databases…  Highly asynchronous updates (centuries)

Scalable Information Networks for the Environment A view from Europe…

Scalable Information Networks for the Environment A view from New Zealand

Scalable Information Networks for the Environment The new colonialism (1) …

Scalable Information Networks for the Environment The new colonialism (2)

Scalable Information Networks for the Environment The politics of data structures  political issues are fought out using technical language (Carlson)  data models fold in legacy assumptions (Edwards)  the distinction between the material world (hardware; wiring) and the discursive world (code; protocols) breaks down in modern infrastructures

Scalable Information Networks for the Environment Infrastructure is performative  Differences between communities of practice are reified over time (fossil record; gastropod distribution)  There is no single nesting of data objects into a normalized time and space

Scalable Information Networks for the Environment The Ideal Symposium: Front End … and I don’t want to also have to juggle all the economics around in my mind. I just want to have the economically receptive module, you know, being able to plug in and out of everything, and then you know like and so I’ll go to one discipline, say can it into code, put it into code, get it all working, make sure it’s calibrated and forget about it and go to the next one. Work that, forget about and then all these these modules by themselves become individual entities that then can plug together

Scalable Information Networks for the Environment Sliming Data: What the modeller wants Modellers like the slime, they like to aggregate. Get the big picture, get the general idea or so. People who collect data, they uh, and they just work in their particular field and they get, you know, through long term observations, they get they actually get the whole thing in more and more detail…. They just, they just to try to to get more and more detail in that particular niche. Modellers like the slime, they like to aggregate. Get the big picture, get the general idea or so. People who collect data, they uh, and they just work in their particular field and they get, you know, through long term observations, they get they actually get the whole thing in more and more detail…. They just, they just to try to to get more and more detail in that particular niche.

Scalable Information Networks for the Environment Infrastructure is Diffuse  Representing the work of others: –you have//right//to slime it//yeah you have to slime it, right//um hm hm//Right and there is a lot of resistance against sliming, because it doesn’t represent their hard work.  Career trajectories and slime –And if you talk with GIS people and they say, oh, I got the really nice map of one by one and you say, well, but can you make that – a yeah but’s exactly the wrong dir—oh we did that 20 years ago—yeah but that’s what I want!!! (ha ha ha).

Scalable Information Networks for the Environment Registration and Synchronization this global mapping, mapping model on the ecosystem surface. So it tries to model the whole happening with the globe, and look at the economic system in there and see how the economic system is driving the ecological system and its services. So now we try to predict what this economic forces do in the future, so well, so if I want to look at the economics, how its been done since the Second World War you know, things look really bleak. If I go back maybe two or three hundred years and I draw that out, you know I can still see some disaster happening but I will trust that after we got rid of after, you know, once all the oil is burned up, that we still have still quite some population of people who will be able to populate the globe./Mmm Hmm/So you can tweak those scales. this global mapping, mapping model on the ecosystem surface. So it tries to model the whole happening with the globe, and look at the economic system in there and see how the economic system is driving the ecological system and its services. So now we try to predict what this economic forces do in the future, so well, so if I want to look at the economics, how its been done since the Second World War you know, things look really bleak. If I go back maybe two or three hundred years and I draw that out, you know I can still see some disaster happening but I will trust that after we got rid of after, you know, once all the oil is burned up, that we still have still quite some population of people who will be able to populate the globe./Mmm Hmm/So you can tweak those scales.

Scalable Information Networks for the Environment Caribou in Canada

Scalable Information Networks for the Environment The Use of the Archive  The rare orchid problem  The difficulty of changing names (and the need to change them)

Scalable Information Networks for the Environment Representing Local Knowledge 1

Scalable Information Networks for the Environment Representing Local Knowledge 2

Scalable Information Networks for the Environment Infrastructure is…  Performative (partially creates the world it subtends)  Diffuse (no centralized update)

Scalable Information Networks for the Environment Databases as Communication Tools The digital culture of biodiversity science leads us very quickly on the one hand into deep theoretical questions and on the other to questions of communication patterns both between various scientific disciplines and between those disciplines and legal and political bodies. In a biodiverse world we need to be able to manipulate ontologically diverse data.

Scalable Information Networks for the Environment And, in the end, the world you make is equal to the notes you take