Paper Type
Complete
Paper Number
PACIS2025-1251
Description
This study examines civic labor within the IS domain through a smart city grievance system, Sahaya Helpline, and the citizen-led Ward Committee in Bengaluru, India. Using digital ethnography, including semi-structured interviews and participant observation, it applies an infrastructural labor lens to make visible the intentional civic work, workers, and their everyday practices as both labor and infrastructure. Findings show that unpaid, voluntary civic labor is vital in addressing infrastructural gaps. The study proposes the concept of labor emerging in the absence of IS infrastructure to manage interruptions. Rather than formalizing such efforts, supporting this labor improves the adaptability and effectiveness of IS interventions. It also reveals that digital materiality can shift power dynamics, sometimes reversing traditional roles of control and surveillance between officials and civic communities. By recognizing civic labor as infrastructural, the study contributes to a deeper understanding of labor’s role in sustaining urban digital systems.
Recommended Citation
Pavagada Subbanarasimha, Rashmi, "Beyond Breakdowns: Visibilizing the Infrastructural Labor that sustain everyday Information System Shortcomings" (2025). PACIS 2025 Proceedings. 12.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/pacis2025/is_adoption/is_adoption/12
Beyond Breakdowns: Visibilizing the Infrastructural Labor that sustain everyday Information System Shortcomings
This study examines civic labor within the IS domain through a smart city grievance system, Sahaya Helpline, and the citizen-led Ward Committee in Bengaluru, India. Using digital ethnography, including semi-structured interviews and participant observation, it applies an infrastructural labor lens to make visible the intentional civic work, workers, and their everyday practices as both labor and infrastructure. Findings show that unpaid, voluntary civic labor is vital in addressing infrastructural gaps. The study proposes the concept of labor emerging in the absence of IS infrastructure to manage interruptions. Rather than formalizing such efforts, supporting this labor improves the adaptability and effectiveness of IS interventions. It also reveals that digital materiality can shift power dynamics, sometimes reversing traditional roles of control and surveillance between officials and civic communities. By recognizing civic labor as infrastructural, the study contributes to a deeper understanding of labor’s role in sustaining urban digital systems.
Comments
Innovation