Infrastructure Manifest (v. 1.0)—Arun Jacob—Chapter 14—“Resisting BYOI (Bring Your Own Infrastructure) in Digital Humanities Learning Spaces”
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.

Primarily worked out of my home in Hamilton, Ontario. Hamilton is situated upon the traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee and Mississaugas. This land is covered by the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, which was an agreement between the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabek to share and care for the resources around the Great Lakes. Not Applicable Not Applicable

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.

The materials that power all our electronic devices are fruits of the labour of peoples exploited by capital interests, labourers that comprise the bottom rung of extractive economy. The peoples, places, lands and communities that are harmed in the process of resource extraction to power high-technology devices and digital gadgetry does make one question the total cost of operation. Do we account for the contaminants and carcinogens released in the extraction and processing of the minerals that make up these devices and technologies or are they merely externalities? How does one take stock of the conflict minerals that are a part of the infrastructural slag?
Not Applicable Not Applicable

Energy infrastructure

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

The research for and the writing of this chapter took place both on and off the grid, sometimes by design and at other times as the elements laid bare how stressed and frail the aging public utilites energy infrastructure truly were.
  • Electricity: Alectra Utilities Corporation
  • Cellphone Service Provider: Bell Canada Enterprises
  • Internet Service Provider: Bell Canada Enterprises
Not Applicable Not Applicable

Transportation infrastructure

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

I have used public transit to commute to the university and back home in the course of writing this piece.
  • Hamilton Street Railway (HSR)
  • Mississauga Transit (MiWay)
  • Toronto Transit Commission (TTC)
  • GO Transit
Not Applicable Not Applicable

Architectural infrastructure

For example, buildings, labs, rooms

Home and the University of Toronto.
  • Home office
  • Communication, Culture, & Technology Building, University of Toronto Mississauga
  • Robarts Research Library, University of Toronto, St. George
Not Applicable Not Applicable

Civic, community, national, or regional infrastructure

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

  • Roadways, railways, and airports used for transportation
  • Mixed public/private energy utility infrastructure
  • Province of Ontario
  • Cities of Hamilton
  • Missisauga and Toronto
Not Applicable Not Applicable

Institutional infrastructure

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

I am quite often reminded of how tethered I am to the institutional infrastructure as the Cisco Duo Mobile reminds me to verify my identity and location to login into my institutional account. A snapshot is taken each time I login to read an article from the university library’s journal subscription, the institutional email account, etc for institutional security purposes. My login credentials to the institution are operational only if my fees are paid in full and my status is in good standing. The institution is capable of swiftly revoking access to the infrastructure if it finds me not living up to their expectations.
  • Cisco Duo Mobile
  • University of Toronto Multi-factor authentication (UTORMFA)
Not Applicable 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

The labour infrastructure scaffolding this chapter involved a collaborative, consistent, and committed labor of care, especially as my co-authors and I connected from various lands, including sovereign Indigenous lands, using digital infrastructure built on and through Indigenous lands—and equally, as we scheduled our co-writing, asynchronous writing, and co-editing work on a weekly basis whilst also navigating precarious careers.
In researching for this chapter, we did not have any research assistants nor did we as co-authors seek any external copyediting support. However, we recognize that the tools and software we used in the process of co-writing this piece are powered and built through extraction from land and water, often located in Indigenous territories and the Global South, and we further recognize that the folks who provide integral labor in running these infrastructures are often working under immensely precarious conditions.
Not Applicable Not Applicable

Research-content infrastructure

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

The research-content and bibliographic infrastructure included the following:

  • Personal library

    Comprising physical books as well as e-books, articles, and book chapters

  • Pedagogy of the Digitally Oppressed repository (on cloud storage)

    Comprising chapter and article PDFs

  • University of Toronto (UofT) library

    On campus and e-resources made available via intranet as well as internet services, and involving institutional subscriptions to databases, local and international repositories, and journals.

  • Search engines
    • Google
    • Google Scholar
  • Social media resources
    • WhatsApp
    • Telegram
    • Facebook (occassional use)
  • Robarts Research Library, University of Toronto, St. George
  • Google Paid Subscription User Account
Not Applicable Not Applicable

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)

As a co-authored and collaboratively developed chapter, “Resisting BYOI (Bring Your Own Infrastructure) in Digital Humanities Learning Spaces” came into being for me via the following analog and digital tools:

  • Analog tools
    • Plain notebook
    • Plain printing paper (8.5″ × 11″)
    • Pencils
    • Pens
    • Markers
    • Highlighters
    • Erasers
    • Rulers
    • Tape
    • Whiteboard
  • Computer(s)
    • Personal laptop
    • Personal computer
  • Operating system
    • macOS 14 Sonoma (personal laptop)
    • Windows 11 (personal computer)
  • Reference management software
    • Paperpile
  • Word processors (from most to least used)
    • Google Doc
    • Microsoft Word
  • Spreadsheet tools (from most to least used)
    • Google Sheets
    • Excel Spreadsheet
  • Interactive hypertext tool
    • Google Slides
    • Twine
  • Email tools
    • Gmail (personal)
    • Microsoft Outlook (institutional)
  • Collaboration platform and chat software tool
    • Discord
    • MuteDeck
  • Collaboration platform and chat hardware tool
    • Lumina 4k WebCam
    • Blue Yeti USB Microphone
    • Bose QuiteComfort 35 II Noise Cancelling Headphones
    • Elgato Stream Deck Classic
Not Applicable Not Applicable

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)

  • Storage: Google Drive
  • Networked platform: Humanities/Knowledge Commons
  • Collaboration platform and chat tool:
    • Discord
    • WhatsApp
  • Social media: Facebook
Not Applicable Not Applicable

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.

Not Applicable Not Applicable Not Applicable
Other infrastructure Infrastructure of Care—It would be worth taking into account the infrastructure of care into which the authors are embroidered into. My collaborators and I have talked about care labor in the previous section, but taking into account care infrastructures in which the authors belong could be something to consider. Much like the infrastructures listed above, this item would make threadbare the proximity to and capacity for caring, caregiving, and caretaking that the author network is responsibilized with. How do the infrastructure of care and its corresponding stack of care duties and responsibilites impact—and redefine—the performance metrics of a scholar? Not Applicable Not Applicable

This infrastructure manifest was completed by Arun Jacob and reports on Chapter 14, “Resisting BYOI (Bring Your Own Infrastructure) in Digital Humanities Learning Spaces.”