Infrastructure Manifest (v. 1.0)—Ann Borda, Toby Burrows, Mike Jones, Deb Verhoeven—Chapter 12—“Reproducibility and Contestation in Humanities Digital Infrastructure”
Infrastructure Type Descriptiona

Control point for access to or useb

For example, identify the owner, regulator, manager, etc. as appropriate

Open Source, Open Access, or Public Resource/Utilityc Proprietaryc How heavily used?d Reliabilityd Satisfaction for Userd Ethical concerns (known or possible) Comments

Land infrastructure

For example, properties ceded, unceded, public, private, etc.

Include only principal land infrastructures.

  • Land infrastructure in Australia (Naarm/Melbourne; Canberra), Canada (Vancouver, British Columbia, and Edmonton, Alberta), and the United Kingdom (Oxford) contributed to concept development and writing the chapter/introduction.
  • Deb Verhoeven lives and works in both Naarm/Melbourne and Alberta, Canada. Her work on the chapter was conducted on the unceded lands of the Boon Wurrung/Bunurong and the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung peoples of the Kulin Nation and Treaty 6 territory, traditional lands of First Nations and Métis people including the Cree, Blackfoot, Métis, Nakota Sioux, Iroquois, Dene, Ojibway/Saulteaux/Anishinaabe, Inuit, and many others.
  • For Mike Jones, the bulk of the work on the chapter was conducted on Ngunnawal/Ngambri Country in Canberra, primarily on the Acton campus of the Australian National University and the new Research School of Social Sciences building which opened in 2020. Following European invasion, the Acton campus was transformed by pastoralism, and then by the university which was founded by a Bill in Federal Parliament in 1946. The final stages of work then took place in private homes on Wurundjeri Country in Naarm (Melbourne). These lands are unceded—always was, always will be Aboriginal land.
  • For this chapter, Toby Burrows worked mainly in a private home in Oxford, UK. Some of the work for this chapter was also conducted in private homes in Boorloo/Perth, Western Australia, situated on the unceded traditional lands of the Whadjuk Noongar people.
  • Ann Borda lives and works in both Naarm/Melbourne and Vancouver, Canada. Her work on the chapter was conducted partially on the unceded land of Traditional Custodians of the Peoples of the Kulin Nation (University of Melbourne), and the bulk of the work was conducted on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the xwməθkwəy̓əm Musqueam First Nation (private home in Vancouver, British Columbia.)
ANU acknowledges the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people, who are the Traditional Owners of the land upon which the University’s Acton campus is located. See https://www.anu.edu.au/students/contacts/tjabal-indigenous-higher-education-centre. Yes Yes 10 10 10 Colonialism and the effects of British imperialism and settler colonialism pervade all the locations listed here.

Materials infrastructure

For example, notable common or rare extracted or other materials used in research, production, and communication.

Break down by notable materials used in devices or tools if appropriate.

As outlined in James Smithies’ infrastructure manifest for this volume, principal materials required for routine research work on this chapter (including daily driving and public transport, use of laptop computers and mobile phones) include the following notable rare materials (quoted from Silva, Jim. “These 4 Popular Consumer Goods Require a Shocking Amount of Metal to Make.” Midwest Industrial Supply [blog], 2016. https://blog.midwestind.com/consumer-goods-large-amounts-metal/):

Materials in Personal Computers and Laptops

Computer hard drives use neodymium and dysprosium, which allow the drives to be smaller and operate more efficiently. Like hybrid vehicles, almost all batteries found in computers require REMs, including lanthanum, which extends the life of the battery. Europium is used for the color red in computer screens, alongside yttrium and terbium. Cerium, meanwhile, is an effective polisher of computer chips.

Materials in Mobile Phones

Most displays found on cell phones, laptops, and the like use rare earth elements for both their color screens (europium, yttrium, and terbium) and their display strength. iPhones alone contain nine different REMs: yttrium, for the color screen; lanthanum, for the screen, glass polishing, and the phone’s circuitry; cerium, for glass polishing; praseodymium, for the screen, polishing, circuitry, and headphones; neodymium is also found in the phone’s circuitry and headphones; europium both colors the screen and is used in the vibration unit; gadolinium is found in the screen, circuitry, and speakers; terbium for the vibration unit, screen, and polishing; and, finally, dysprosium is used in all the listed components besides glass polishing.

For a more precise list of materials typically used in a single laptop computer, see Circular Computing,“Raw Materials in a Laptop,” Oct. 16, 2019, https://circularcomputing.com/news/raw-materials-in-a-laptop/, which specifies: 50% steel and aluminum, 26% ABS-PC, 12% Metals, and 9% epoxy (and then further specifies a list with gram weights of 19 minerals and metals).

For additional explanations and listings of materials in computers, mobile phones, etc., see Andrew Wheeler, “What Raw Materials Are Used to Make Hardware in Computing Devices?,” engineering.com, Sept. 28, 2018, https://www.engineering.com/story/what-raw-materials-are-used-to-make-hardware-in-computing-devices. The post includes an infographic from a mining consultant showing the materials that make up the 129 grams of an iPhone 6, 16GB model.

Excluded in this tabulation of materials infrastructure are materials in transportation, architectural, and other infrastructure beyond personal control; and in networking and cloud server farm infrastructures.

Unknown Not Applicable Yes Environmental concerns

Energy infrastructure

For example, principal energy sources and infrastructure used in research, production, and communication

  • Electricity used for personal and cloud computing, generated through a combination of fossil fuels and renewable sources.
  • Fuel used for transport, including private cars, taxis, buses, and flights.
Yes Yes Environmental impact

Transportation infrastructure

For example, private or public transportation needed for daily or research trips

  • In Melbourne and Alberta, Deb Verhoeven used a rented e-scooter provided by a private company and driven along bitumen and conrete surfaces, as well as public transport infratsructure inluding buses, rtams and trains.
  • In Canberra Mike Jones primarily used a metal framed pedal powered bicycle for his daily commute to Australian National University along the bitumen and concrete bike paths running from Downer in Canberra’s north to the Australian National University. He also periodically used the light rail service down Northbourne Avenue, or a private car. Work in Melbourne was from home and did not require specific transport infrastructure.
  • In Melbourne and Vancouver, Ann Borda used public transport, such as city bus and public tram system in Melbourne. Work in Vancouver was from home and largely did not require specific transport infrastructure. In Perth and Oxford, Toby Burrows worked mainly from home but made some use of public transportation (bus) and private transportation (car).
Yes Yes Environmental impact

Architectural infrastructure

For example, buildings, labs, rooms

  • Campus departments, offices, and library buildings at University of Alberta, Australian National University, University of Melbourne, and the University of Oxford
  • Private homes
Yes Yes

Civic, community, national, or regional infrastructure

For example, provided by cities, communities, governments, etc.

  • Roads, bike paths, and airports used for transportation
  • Mixed public/private energy utility infrastructure
Cities of Canberra, Australia; Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; Oxford, UK; Melbourne, Australia; and Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Yes Not Applicable

Institutional infrastructure

For example, equipment, services, and “overhead” or “indirect cost recovery” items for grants to universities

Campus network and overhead and staffing costs for research work University Yes Not Applicable

Labor infrastructure

For example, type and amount of labor from collaborators, staff, research assistants; include any attributes that seem important, such as unrecognized, unpaid, low-paid, outsourced, or other attributes of labor

As co-authors we relied on each other’s labour to complete the work on this chapter. Not Applicable Not Applicable Concerns around the ethics of attribution and recognition

Research-content infrastructure

For example, physical libraries and archives, online research materials, shadow libraries, etc.

Principal research infrastructures providing content (research materials in the form of books, articles, images, etc.) include:

  • Personal libraries of scholarly books in physical and digital form
  • University of Alberta, Australian National University, University of Melbourne, and Oxford University libraries, including as gateways to (institutional subscriber or licensee of) scholarly materials aggregated or distributed by a vareity of vendors in database or other forms. Principal scholarly materials accessed in this way include: articles and other materials in article databases, articles and books from a variety of proprietary, university, or consortium online archives.
  • Search engines (primarily Duck Duck Go, Google)
Principal control points are vendors (publishers, research aggregators and databases, etc.) whose subscriptions or licenses are mediated through the various university libraries used. Yes Yes Environmental impact; privacy and intellectual property concerns; data sovereignty.

Tools infrastructure

For example, principal analog tools and digital tools, scripts, or protocols used for research, writing, communication, production (excluding high-performance computing, for which see below)

The tools ecosystem for working on this chapter includes:

  • Analog tools

    Minimal use of pen, pencil and post-its, small notebook (Ann Borda), otherwise almost no paper, pens, or other analog tools for other co-authors

  • Computers
    • personal laptops
    • smartphones
    • tablets
  • Operating systems
    • Mac OS
    • iOS
    • MS Windows
  • Printer

    Minimal use

Principal software tools
  • Bibliography tool
    • Zotero
  • Notes tool
    • Obsidian
  • Project Management Tool
    • Trello
  • Word processors
    • Google Docs
    • Word
  • Email tools
    • MS Outlook
    • Gmail
    • Airmail
Not Applicable Yes
  • Environmental impact
  • Privacy and intellectual property concerns
  • Data sovereignty

Networked Platforms infrastructure

For example, major networked or cloud platforms used for research, storage, analysis, sharing, communication, publication—Google Drive, Dropbox, AWS, etc. (excluding high-performance computing, for which see below)

Google Drive for co-authoring Proprietary systems. Not Applicable Yes
  • Environmental impact
  • Privacy and intellectual property concerns
  • Data sovereignty

High-performance computing infrastructure

Here defined expansively to include the use not just of supercomputers and computer clusters or grids but any high-performance computing infrastructure or special GPU and other processors exceeding the capabilities of an individual workstation, laptop, or server.

None Not Applicable Not Applicable
Other infrastructure Not Applicable Not Applicable

This infrastructure manifest was completed by Ann Borda, Toby Burrows, Mike Jones, and Deb Verhoeven and reports on Chapter 12, “Reproducibility and Contestation in Humanities Digital Infrastructure.”