The economic and socialcultural effects of developing cyber-infrastructure for global information storage in Iceland, 2014

The aim of this project was to map the impacts of information infrastructures (for example, data centers, internet exchanges, and fiber-optic cables). Though such networks are often described as immediate and immaterial, this research proposed that data transfer and storage actually have significant social, political, and ecological effects. Such impacts were investigated through fourteen months of ethnographic research (interviews and participant observation) in Reykjavík and Reykjanes, Iceland. A current hot spot for data center siting, doing research in Iceland offered an opportunity to study infrastructural development in motion, and investigate how it was promoted and perceived. Findings from this project are compiled in the dissertation: "Compromising Connections: Icelandic Information Infrastructure and the Making of Marginality"