Infrastructure Manifest (v. 1.0)—Matthew Hockenberry—Chapter 4—“Manifesting Connection: Digital Humanities for the Critical Study of Logistics”
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 for Fordham University, founded as St. John’s College in 1841 by the bishop John Hughes from his purchase of a 106 acre farm for $29,750 (https://fordham.libguides.com/c.php?g=451084&p=4031308). My primary office space is located at the Lincoln Center campus, which was opened in 1961 as part of the Lincoln Square Renewal Project. This land, like all New York City land is the ancestral homeland of the Lenape (Lenapehoking) “who were violently displaced as a result of European settler colonialism over the course of 400 years” (https://www.nyc.gov/site/cchr/about/cchr-land-acknowledgment.page).
  • Private home and residence in the Township of Maplewood, NJ, which also occupies the ancestral homeland of the Lenape.
  • Manifest itself a number of disparate geographies, but it is primarily served from the NNJ2 data center (badged as US-East by Linode/Akamai). This is a “state-of-the-art New Jersey colocation data center facility features high density colocation capabilities, redundant power and cooling, comprehensive security features and flexible network infrastructure, and supports a broad spectrum of Cloud, Colocation and Managed Services. With flexible power configurations and superior support services, Cologix’s Cedar Knolls, New Jersey colocation data center helps customers safeguard critical data while utilizing enterprise-level IT solutions” (see: https://www.datacenters.com/cologix-nnj2-new-jersey and https://cologix.com/data-centers/new-jersey/nnj2/).
  • Prior to this Manifest was hosted by Abelohost (primarily) at the Serverius B.V. facility in the Netherlands. According to the site, it is “a carrier-neutral Netherlands datacenter. It is located just a few miles away from Amsterdam in the heart of the Netherlands. The company is unique for its high quality services and its array of available networks. It is located in a perfectly stable environment, which makes it possible to build private networks and co-locate private hardware. The datacenter consists of the newest and most reliable technology: its high capacity co-location is protected with air conditioning, Tier 3 emergency power, efficient climate control services and modern fire extinguishers” (See: https://serverius.net and https://www.datacentermap.com/company/serverius-bv2.html).
  • University property: President and Board of Fordham University.
  • Personal real estate: personal control, outside of the regulations imposed by the Township of Maplewood.
Not Applicable Yes 10 10 9 In addition to the occupation of native land and the attendant histories of exclusion, erasure, and systemic discrimination enrolled in the occupation, Fordham University (while governed independently of the church since 1969) shares, to some extent, both the promises and problems of the church.

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.

Personal computer, tablet, and mobile phone materials: Both the writing of this chapter, and the development of the Manifest platform, require hardware. This includes Macbooks, iPhones, and iPads “designed by Apple” but “assembled in China.” There are numerous documents recounting the materiality at stake here. In one that I authored, I noted that “These are networked objects, not only literally within the telecommunication network, but”:

“like all global productions, as [entities] inescapably enmeshed in the material network of [their] assembly. [They are] housed in plastics molded in Ecuador, Saudi Arabia, and Russia . . . comprised of metals (aluminum and titanium) and glass (Gorilla and otherwise) bought from Africa, South America, and Asia. The batteries are made from cadmium, nickel, and lithium fashioned sometimes in the United States, but often in Chile or Japan. Each requires components—speakers, microphones, clocks, and sensors—imported from East and Southeast Asia. The circuit board and memory arrive occasionally from Japan and Malaysia, but more often from China and Taiwan. Littered throughout these components are metals—gold, copper, tantalum, tin, and aluminum—drawn from South America (in places like Chile or Brazil) and Africa (from South Africa and the Congo). These myriad and precious ingredients are identified, gathered, processed, and assembled in factories in some of the poorest regions on the earth . . . [These are] heterogeneous productions made with heterogeneous engineering . . . Plastics are fused by (and with) people. Metals are produced by first producing miners, then producing mines. To an already troublesome litany, a comprehensive account must add actors, sites, and politics—both lives and ways of life.” Hockenberry, Matthew. “Material Epistemologies of the (Mobile) Telephone.” Anthropological Quarterly, vol. 91 no. 2, 2018, p. 485–524.

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.

Various. Primarily personal control of computer and mobile phone. The server materials are controlled by Akamai (and previously, Abelohost). Not Applicable Yes 10 9 9 The main ethical concerns are environmental (contributing to unsustainable impacts on the environment through materials extraction and energy usage) and social (unknown labor conditions along the chain of materials extraction, manufacture, and transport).

Energy infrastructure

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

  • Electricity in New York and New Jersey for digital infrastructures behind the writing of text, preparatory notes, etc. for a chapter.
  • Electricity in New Jersey and elsewhere for Manifest’s operations (see: https://www.akamai.com/blog/news/conserving-energy for information on energy use by Akamai, Manifest’s hosting provider).
New York State, New York City, and the State of New Jersey, along with a variety of public/private utility companies (Con Edison, PSEG, etc.). Yes Yes 7 9 9 The main ethical concern is environmental impact.

Transportation infrastructure

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

  • New Jersey Transit for commute to campus (while the rolling stock varies, my commuting times generally result in the Bombardier locomotive and passenger cars—see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NJ_Transit_rolling_stock for more information on NJ Transit’s available rolling stock.
    • Use level: 4
    • Reliability: 7
    • Satisfaction: 7
  • New York City Subway for commute to campus (most frequently the A or 1 trains to connect from Penn Station).
    • Use level: 8
    • Reliability: 9
    • Satisfaction: 8
NJ Transit and MTA, the governmental organizations/corporate entities responsible for public transportation. Yes Yes 4 9 7 The main ethical concern is environmental impact.

Architectural infrastructure

For example, buildings, labs, rooms

  • Campus department building, offices.
    • Use level: 2
    • Reliability: 10
    • Satisfaction: 7
  • Home office.
    • Use level: 4
    • Reliability: 10
    • Satisfaction: 8
University and department. Not Applicable Yes 2 10 7

Civic, community, national, or regional infrastructure

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

Railways used for transportation; mixed public/private energy utility infrastructure. New York State, New York City, and the State of New Jersey Yes Yes 5 7 7

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, various other indirect cost items budgeted as part of Manifest’s Digital Humanities Advancement Grant. University and department. Not Applicable Not Applicable 5 9 7

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

Manifest’s development is supported by a Digital Humanities Advancement Grant to Fordham and University of Colorado Boulder which supports both myself and my Co-PI on the grant. This has supported hiring several undergraduate and graduate students (at Fordham, University of Colorado Boulder, and—in one case—a graduate student enrolled at the University of Delaware but based in New York). Personal, with grant budget under ultimate authority of Fordham University and University of Colorado Boulder. Not Applicable Not Applicable 8 10 10 The main ethical concern is regarding labor rights—working conditions and appropriate compensation. While I believe we have provided reasonable working conditions and above-average compensation, I represent “management” from the perspective of the project.

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 library of scholarly books in physical form, supplemented by scholarly books in e-book form and pdfs of articles.
  • Fordham University library serving as the gateway to (institutional subscriber or licensee of) scholarly materials aggregated or distributed by a variety of vendors in database or other forms. Principal scholarly materials accessed in this way include: JSTOR and a variety of proprietary, university, or consortium online archives.
    • Use level: 9
    • Reliability: 8
    • Satisfaction for user: 7
  • Search engines (primarily Google) or portals used as finding aids for scholarly materials (especially Google Scholar, but also Academia.edu or ResearchGate).
    • Use level: 7
    • Reliability: 6
    • Satisfaction for user: 6
  • Additional repositories utilized in the survey of DH logistics software (for example, Research Data Australia for the Port Botany visualization data/code).
  • The majority of this content was not open access.
Principal control points are vendors (publishers, research aggregators and databases, etc.) whose subscriptions or licenses are mediated through the downstream control point of my university’s library. Not Applicable Yes 3 8 8 The main ethical concern is the lack of open access materials used in the research process.

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 my chapter and for the development of the Manifest platform featured in that chapter is as follows:

Core hardware/software
  • Computers: personal laptop, plus secondary tablet computer sometimes used during travel
    • Use level: 10
    • Reliability: 9
    • Satisfaction: 9
  • Operating system: macOS (version 13—Ventura and 14—Sonoma) and iPad OS (versions 15, 16, and 17)
    • Use level: 10
    • Reliability: 8
    • Satisfaction: 7
Principal software tools

These tools are largely proprietary.

  • Word processors:
    • Apple Pages (primary text writing)
      • Use level: 8
      • Reliability:10
      • Satisfaction: 9
    • Microsoft Office (only for final copies/collaboration)
      • Use level: 4
      • Reliability:10
      • Satisfaction: 5
  • Text editors:
    • Textmate (for drafting, notes, and coding)
      • Use level: 8
      • Reliability: 10
      • Satisfaction: 9
  • Spreadsheet tools:
    • Excel and Google Sheets
      • Use level: 4
      • Reliability: 9
      • Satisfaction: 8
  • Email tool:
    • Gmail
      • Use level: 10
      • Reliability: 9
      • Satisfaction: 8
Manifest platform development tools

These tools are primarily open source.

Local control point is personal, but some tools such as Gmail are network or cloud based, with distributed points of control. Yes Yes 7 9 9

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)

Cloud storage and productivity software
  • Google Drive (personal and institutional accounts)
    • Use level: 8
    • Reliability: 10
    • Satisfaction: 9
  • Google Apps (Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, etc.)
    • Use level: 8
    • Reliability: 10
    • Satisfaction: 9
Collaboration platforms and services
Manifest platform server environment

Which overlaps with personal development tools; this environment is primarily run by open source sotware:

Social media
  • Twitter and Mastodon
    • Use level for this project: 1
    • Reliability: 4
    • Satisfaction: 4
Some control points are with the platform providers, and (except for the “federated” Mastodon) are centralized and proprietary (and largely available by university licensing agreement). A number of other tools (Discourse, etc.)—which are the ones most significant to the project) are hosted on the supplystudies.com server and largely under our control outside of the requirements by the hosting provider (Akamai). Yes Not Applicable 8 9 8 The main ethical concerns are environmental impact owing to the uncertain geographies required by cloud infrastructure, its energy use, and the entanglements of its complex depencies.

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 Matthew Hockenberry and reports on Chapter 4, “Manifesting Connection: Digital Humanities for the Critical Study of Logistics.”