Using Ethnography to Study Technological Infrastructure:

Star makes some interesting arguments about the invisibility of technological infrastructure and explores the way in which ethnographic methods can be used to study technological infrastructure.
She's clear initially that there are might be some issues applying the method to large infrastructures with groups distributed geographically and temporally.  The traditional ethnographic method does not lend itself well to such a large scale because ethnography is usually "labour-intensive" and analysis-intensive" that does not lend easily to studying large groups. However, she also notes that ethnography can be useful in addressing the marginalized voices of people who are disenfranchised from technological infrastructure as well as gaps in policy and execution.  She reports some "tricks of the trade" to help when reading some features of Infrastructural  "Identifying Master Narratives and 'Others", "Surfacing Invisible Work", "Paradoxes of Infrastructure".  One question that remained after reading Star is how can one study the Technological  Infrastructure using ethnography with limited knowledge of technology? Star advocates at the beginning of her reading that researchers should seek to understand the invisible background information like how laying of sewer pipes process is decided and executed and what that says about our society rather than focusing on the water coming out of the tap. I can certainly use a computer  and other technological devices; however, I don't know about how pipes and filters are organized to create the internet and will likely never be able to fully speak to the infrastructure of the internet without fully understanding the internet. Since ethnography involves thick and rich description I sceptical that regular people like myself can use this method to study technological infrastructure effectively. This relates to our talk last week about case studies, how much knowledge do you need to create a method or unit for comparison in order to compare qualitative case studies with quantitative case studies.