Compare methods

	Infrastructure Studies	Sociotechnical Systems Analysis
Field	Science Technology Studies	Science Technology Studies
Family	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	1996	1983
Originator	Susan Leigh Star, Geoffrey Bowker, Karen Ruhleder	Thomas P. Hughes
Type	Qualitative method for studying relational infrastructure	Historical-analytic method for large technological systems
Seminal source	Star, S. L., & Ruhleder, K. (1996). Steps toward an ecology of infrastructure: design and access for large information spaces. Information Systems Research, 7(1), 111-134.	Hughes, T. P. (1983). Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society, 1880-1930. Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN: 9780801828737
Aliases	Infrastructural inversion, Ecology of infrastructure, Study of boundary objects	Large technical systems analysis, Hughesian systems approach, Technological systems analysis
Related	4	4
Summary	The infrastructure studies method, developed by Susan Leigh Star, Geoffrey Bowker, and Karen Ruhleder, studies the normally invisible relational systems—standards, classifications, pipes, protocols, and installed bases—on which modern life silently depends. Its signature move is 'infrastructural inversion': deliberately foregrounding the background, treating the taken-for-granted substrate as the object of analysis, and reading its standards, classifications, and breakdowns to understand how it shapes work, knowledge, and lives.	Sociotechnical systems analysis, developed by the historian of technology Thomas P. Hughes, studies large technological systems—electric power, telephony, transport—as a 'seamless web' in which physical artefacts, organisations, scientific knowledge, laws, and people are woven together. Drawing on his study of electrification in Networks of Power and his model of system evolution, the method locates the system's reverse salients, follows the work of system builders, and traces how a system acquires momentum and passes through characteristic phases of growth.