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Futuring the Cloud: An Ethnographic ...

Zander, Madelyn,

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Futuring the Cloud: An Ethnographic Study of Critical Data Center Infrastructure Growth, Environmental Threat, and Community Risk /

Record Type:	Electronic resources : Monograph/item
Title/Author:	Futuring the Cloud: An Ethnographic Study of Critical Data Center Infrastructure Growth, Environmental Threat, and Community Risk // Madelyn Zander.
Author:	Zander, Madelyn,
Description:	1 electronic resource (230 pages)
Notes:	Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 86-03, Section: B.
Contained By:	Dissertations Abstracts International86-03B.
Subject:	Information science. -
Online resource:	https://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/twdaoapp/servlet/advanced?query=31239000
ISBN:	9798384048039

Futuring the Cloud: An Ethnographic Study of Critical Data Center Infrastructure Growth, Environmental Threat, and Community Risk /
Zander, Madelyn,

Futuring the Cloud: An Ethnographic Study of Critical Data Center Infrastructure Growth, Environmental Threat, and Community Risk /Madelyn Zander. - 1 electronic resource (230 pages)

Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 86-03, Section: B.

This dissertation ethnographically examines the rapid expansion of critical data center infrastructure and its accompanying sociotechnical imaginaries to demonstrate how the infrastructure interacts with political, environmental, and economic concerns. Two and a half years of fieldwork in the Northern Virginia region in the United States, a prime but contested and internationally recognized location for data centers, animates these concerns and shows how global and national desires play out on a state and community stage. Through semi-structured interviews, participant observation, examination of historical accounts, and policy and document analysis, I attend to the material and political realities of data centers. I identify sociotechnical imaginaries at the U.S. national and Virginia-state levels that serve as a logic to allow data center infrastructure to expand with few checks and balances. At the national level, data centers are envisioned to enable national security, economic security, and innovative AI futures. Virginia-state actors envision data centers as a path toward securing status as a global leader in digital infrastructure and economic stability brought by the financial returns of data centers. These imaginaries currently mediate public understanding of the consequences and benefits of data centers, in some cases, problematically. Can the energy grid keep pace with data center growth? Can the industry remedy an alarming shortage of a skilled and available workforce?I bring those dominant imaginaries into conversation with alternative community level imaginaries of "the cloud" at the site of a controversial proposal for the largest data center development in the world. Community imaginaries highlight the emerging tensions and challenges posed by data center growth; although some community members envision economically promising futures brought by data centers, others rely on their everyday experiences of living alongside the "infrastructuring" of the cloud to offer alternative visions of data center futures. These alternative futures include threats to the environment, concerns about resource availability like energy and water, historical preservation, and quality of life. These community perspectives are presently missing from dominant data center imaginaries. I argue for the need to consider the counternarratives of the cloud and to recognize the limits of presently dominant cloud imaginaries. To do so will enable more effective engagement with the consequences of data growth and the overall sustainability of the underlying infrastructure.

English

ISBN: 9798384048039Subjects--Topical Terms:

554358
Information science.
Subjects--Index Terms:

Data centers

Futuring the Cloud: An Ethnographic Study of Critical Data Center Infrastructure Growth, Environmental Threat, and Community Risk /
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520 $a This dissertation ethnographically examines the rapid expansion of critical data center infrastructure and its accompanying sociotechnical imaginaries to demonstrate how the infrastructure interacts with political, environmental, and economic concerns. Two and a half years of fieldwork in the Northern Virginia region in the United States, a prime but contested and internationally recognized location for data centers, animates these concerns and shows how global and national desires play out on a state and community stage. Through semi-structured interviews, participant observation, examination of historical accounts, and policy and document analysis, I attend to the material and political realities of data centers. I identify sociotechnical imaginaries at the U.S. national and Virginia-state levels that serve as a logic to allow data center infrastructure to expand with few checks and balances. At the national level, data centers are envisioned to enable national security, economic security, and innovative AI futures. Virginia-state actors envision data centers as a path toward securing status as a global leader in digital infrastructure and economic stability brought by the financial returns of data centers. These imaginaries currently mediate public understanding of the consequences and benefits of data centers, in some cases, problematically. Can the energy grid keep pace with data center growth? Can the industry remedy an alarming shortage of a skilled and available workforce?I bring those dominant imaginaries into conversation with alternative community level imaginaries of "the cloud" at the site of a controversial proposal for the largest data center development in the world. Community imaginaries highlight the emerging tensions and challenges posed by data center growth; although some community members envision economically promising futures brought by data centers, others rely on their everyday experiences of living alongside the "infrastructuring" of the cloud to offer alternative visions of data center futures. These alternative futures include threats to the environment, concerns about resource availability like energy and water, historical preservation, and quality of life. These community perspectives are presently missing from dominant data center imaginaries. I argue for the need to consider the counternarratives of the cloud and to recognize the limits of presently dominant cloud imaginaries. To do so will enable more effective engagement with the consequences of data growth and the overall sustainability of the underlying infrastructure.
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650 4 $a Cultural anthropology. $3 2122764
650 4 $a Environmental studies. $3 2122803
650 4 $a Environmental justice. $3 528369
650 4 $a Information technology. $3 532993
653 $a Data centers
653 $a Ethnography
653 $a Infrastructure
653 $a Sustainable human-computer interaction
653 $a Data center development
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710 2 $a University of Colorado at Boulder. $b Information Science. $e degree granting institution. $3 3816352
720 1 $a Palen, Leysia $e degree supervisor.
720 1 $a Cool, Alison $e degree supervisor.
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