Interface as the site of infrastructural change

ABSTRACT

This study contributes to critical infrastructure literature by investigating people's evolving interactions with surveillance infrastructure at the sites of 'interface', specifically focusing on the tracing infrastructure called Electronic Entry Register, devised by the South Korean government during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Highlighting the significance of the infrastructure's 'interface' as the site of agential interactions that engender new relations, this paper illustrated the diverse ways in which the structural organisations of tracing infrastructure transformed continually and the resultant meanings of surveillance shifted. To this end, a sequence of field research comprising walking interviews, observations, and sit-in interviews was conducted with 11 research participants across various urban sites in Seoul, a city with one of the highest penetration rates of smartphone use. This situated investigation within the geographical context of high sociotechnical potency is noteworthy because urban infrastructuring increasingly invites digital mediation. The empirical evidence demonstrates how the micro-struggles at the interface sites engendered significant infrastructural changes, which in turn reshaped the lived experiences of surveillance. The results flag the need to attend to the conceptual and analytical significance of 'interface' in studying digital infrastructure and reflect on how unfolding sociotechnical relations could express digital infrastructure differently.