Compare methods

	Infrastructure Studies	Valuation Studies Method
Field	Science Technology Studies	Science Technology Studies
Family	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	1996	2013
Originator	Susan Leigh Star, Geoffrey Bowker, Karen Ruhleder	Claes-Fredrik Helgesson, Fabian Muniesa, Michèle Lamont
Type	Qualitative method for studying relational infrastructure	Practice-oriented method for studying valuation
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.	Helgesson, C.-F., & Muniesa, F. (2013). For what it's worth: an introduction to valuation studies. Valuation Studies, 1(1), 1-10.
Aliases	Infrastructural inversion, Ecology of infrastructure, Study of boundary objects	Sociology of valuation, Valography, Study of evaluation practices
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.	The valuation studies method treats valuation—the production, measurement, ordering, and contestation of worth—as a social practice to be studied empirically rather than a hidden mental act or a settled economic fact. Consolidated by Claes-Fredrik Helgesson and Fabian Muniesa and complemented by Michèle Lamont's comparative sociology of valuation and evaluation, it follows how rankings, metrics, prices, and evaluation procedures actually do their work, and asks how worth comes to be, by whom, with which devices, and to what effect.