<div dir="ltr"><div title="">Dear all,</div><div title="">this June (12-14) the Politecnico in Milan will host the 5th STS Italia conference. Please consider submitting an abstract to the track </div><div title="">'To maintain, to repair: Infrastructures and design-in-use' (track 23). Details follow, abstract submission (500 words) is due by <strong>15th February 2014</strong> through the conference website.</div>
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<div>More info at: <a href="http://www.stsitalia.org/?p=1434&lang=en" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" shape="rect"><font color="#196ad4">http://www.stsitalia.org/?p=1434&lang=en</font></a> and <a href="http://www.stsitalia.org/conferences/STSITALIA_2014/AMD_Track23.pdf" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" shape="rect"><font color="#196ad4">http://www.stsitalia.org/conferences/STSITALIA_2014/AMD_Track23.pdf</font></a></div>
<div> </div><div>Circulation through all of your lists and contacts is more than welcome, please spread the word!</div>
<div>Many regards,</div><div>Giuseppina Pellegrino</div><div> </div><div>
Track 23 - To maintain, to repair. Infrastructures and design-in-use.</div><div>Convenors: Alessandro Mongili (University of Padua, Italy, <a href="mailto:alessandro.mongili@unipd.it" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" shape="rect"><font color="#196ad4">alessandro.mongili@unipd.it</font></a>); Giuseppina Pellegrino (University of Calabria, <a href="mailto:gpellegrinous@yahoo.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" shape="rect"><font color="#196ad4">gpellegrinous@yahoo.com</font></a>); Giacomo Poderi (University of Trento, Italy, <a href="mailto:giacomo.poderi@gmail.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" shape="rect"><font color="#196ad4">giacomo.poderi@gmail.com</font></a>).<br clear="none">
Language(s) of submissions: ITA | ENG</div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"></font><div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;text-align:justify">
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<span style="background:white;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";font-size:10pt"><div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;text-align:justify">
Infrastructures exist in the background of other activities and support them. They are usually taken for granted and become evident only after breakdown or malfunctionings. However, in contemporary society and especially with reference to Information and Communication Technologies, inforrmation infrastructures became central to academics and practitioners' interests, as they are expected to support a more and more complex as well as fast-changing world. To understand how information infrastructures adapt to sustain such a world is crucial.</div>
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In this framework, a major mode of change and evolution of information infrastructures is represented by practices of maintenance and repair performed by both designers and users.</div></span><span style="background:white;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";font-size:10pt"><div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;text-align:justify">
When being designed, information infrastructures need to embed in themselves procedures and routines of maintenance and repair in order to work out well.</div></span><span style="background:white;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";font-size:10pt"><div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;text-align:justify">
While being used, even more than during the design process, information infrastructures are transformed and drifted through modes of maintenance and repair enacted by proactive and expert users, as well as by 'naive' ones.</div>
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The English verb 'to maintain' means both 'to keep in good conditions', 'to take care of', and 'to assert'. This double meaning evokes a link between the ontology and existence (resilience) of infrastructures and the resources which keep them updated, consistent and 'stable' over time.</div>
</span><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"> </font><div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;text-align:justify"><span style="background:white;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";font-size:10pt">Therefore, this track welcomes contributions on the topic of information infrastructures from the point of view of their maintenance and repair over the design and usage process.</span></div>
<font face="Times New Roman" size="3"></font><div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;text-align:justify"><span style="background:white;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";font-size:10pt">Amongst possible topics to submit to this track, consider the following ones:</span></div>
<font face="Times New Roman" size="3"></font><div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;text-align:justify"><span style="background:white;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";font-size:10pt"> - how are maintenance and repair performed in design and use of infrastructures? Are these practices different or similar from design to use? Is it possible to envisage a 'design-in-use' process through maintenance and repair as bridging practices?</span></div>
<font face="Times New Roman" size="3"></font><div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;text-align:justify"><span style="background:white;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";font-size:10pt"> - prescribed and inscribed procedure of maintenance and repair in the design of information infrastructures;</span></div>
<font face="Times New Roman" size="3"></font><div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;text-align:justify"><span style="background:white;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";font-size:10pt"> - emerging and creative modes of maintenance and repair enacted by different users (e.g. work-around, bypassing, and so on);</span></div>
<font face="Times New Roman" size="3"></font><div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;text-align:justify"><span style="background:white;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";font-size:10pt"> - ethnographies of information infrastructures at different stages of evolution, with particular reference to repair practices;</span></div>
<font face="Times New Roman" size="3"></font><div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;text-align:justify"><a name="14391ef1399b5a5a___DdeLink__364_10984602" rel="nofollow"><span style="background:white;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";font-size:10pt"> </span></a><span style="background:white;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";font-size:10pt">- theoretical reflections on the importance of maintenance and repair in the ecology of information infrastructures;</span></div>
<font face="Times New Roman" size="3"></font><div style="margin:0cm 0cm 0pt;text-align:justify"><span style="background:white;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";font-size:10pt"><span> </span>- theoretical reflections on how the focus on maintenance and repair of information infrastructures reconfigures roles and processes that are typical of traditional design and use</span></div>
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