{"id":8634,"date":"2020-05-13T15:27:30","date_gmt":"2020-05-13T15:27:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peerproduction.net\/editsuite\/?page_id=8634"},"modified":"2020-05-22T17:23:48","modified_gmt":"2020-05-22T17:23:48","slug":"reviews","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/peerproduction.net\/editsuite\/issues\/issue-14-infrastructuring-the-commons-today-when-sts-meets-ict\/peer-reviewed-papers\/commons-infrastructures-collaborative-design-of-a-political-tent-as-cosmogram\/reviews\/","title":{"rendered":"Reviews (Commons infrastructures: Collaborative design of a political tent as cosmogram)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Review A<\/h2>\n
\n

Reviewer: Liesbeth Huybrechts<\/h1>\n

1) Is the subject matter relevant?<\/h3>\n

The article is interesting in how it revolves around one particular artefact, being a tent \u201cPut to circulate around the city, the tent is a space for conversations and exchanges, a trade fair and an exhibition space where crafts, food, architectural designs, speeches, knowledge and a whole set of practices gathered around to that alternative form of economics\u201d.<\/p>\n

2) Is the treatment of the subject matter intellectually interesting? Are there citations or bodies of literature you think are essential to which the author has not referred?<\/h3>\n

The idea of linking Commoning infrastructures to the notion of cosmogram, formulated by John Tresch (2005) and taken up again by Bruno Latour (2007) to explain his version of cosmopolitics, is interesting as \u201cit gives an account of the compositional character of life in common, emphasizing the relational plot where humans and non-human roles and functions are distributed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The case study is also relevant. It studies the Montevideo Network of Social Economy \u201cin articulation with the Coordinator of Social and Solidarity Economy of Uruguay, space that groups the territorial Networks and is consolidated in 2008. One of the tasks of this space is to promote and disseminate the social and solidarity economy in the country and to manage marketing spaces based on the premise of responsible consumption and fair trade.\u201d<\/p>\n

3) Are there any noticeable problems with the author\u2019s means of validating assumptions or making judgments?<\/h3>\n

The conclusion is the part where the idea of the cosmogram and the tent come together again. Here some summarizing statements are made, but these could have been formulated more as threads for discussion, reflection and further research. Now it is too little clear which conclusions are drawn from which empirical findings.<\/p>\n

4) Is the article well written?<\/h3>\n

The article needs some thorough editing. For instance, Assuming this perspective, this paper proposes to study the production of the common and its infrastructural process taking, as a starting point, the study of redesign practices of an object belonging to the Uruguayan Social and solidarity economy network, a network that brings together different ventures and collectives around this particular way of understanding the economic relationships. (what does this mean exactly)<\/p>\n

\u201cand a whole set of practices gathered around to that alternative form of economics\u201d to that, to what? <\/p>\n

\u201cDrinking from\u201d is a strange expression<\/p>\n

\u201cIn this line of aggregation, more recently, Mar\u00eda Puig de la Bellacasa (2011), drinking from feminist critique of science, will integrate the idea of matter of care to account for both the ethical-political dimension of the production of socio-technical assemblages as well as all the processes necessary to sustain the existence of their products and their inclusion in human lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

This interest in promoting and studying different participatory experiences, based mainly on dialogical mechanisms, (will be) is conceptualized by Sheila Jassanoff (2003) as a participatory turn,<\/p>\n

Nortjes Marres = Noortje Marres<\/p>\n

\u201cwith the other that\u201d = is strange wording<\/p>\n

\u201cInfrastructure becomes conflictive when its uses are exclusive to a few and exclude others, as Langdon Winner (1980) well taught with the Moses crosswalks on Long Island.\u201d Two times excluding?<\/p>\n

5) Are there portions of the article that you recommend be shortened, excised or expanded?<\/h3>\n

The main challenge seems to be the literature introduction; In a very fast way a big amount of STS literature is summarized. I am not sure if all these concepts are necessary. If you would come a bit sooner to the analogy with the cosmogram, this would make more sense. Then you can also sooner link it to STS as a practical perspective, .. and the link to infrastructuring can more easily be made.
\n\u201cThis new trend is what Ignacio Far\u00edas (2016b) calls collaborative turn.These emerging perspectives, product of the mixture between activism and academia, conceive STS as a theoretical perspective as well as a practical one, that is to say, a renewed space of production that allows to investigate, design and promote in a collaborative way collective processes of production of common goods based on experimentation.\u201d<\/p>\n

In general, it seems like the definition of infrastructuring here, is very much linked to how it has been expressed by DiSalvo, in the making of publics, a source that can be elaborated upon in relation to Star. <\/p>\n

The concept of commons is introduced a little late in the text, and I wonder if it is the core of the article? Isn\u2019t it so that you present some case work that support commoning, but the goal is not necessarily to explore that concept an sich? I believe that the step from infrastructure to the link with deleuze\u2019s composition concept, needs to be made faster, instead of focusing too long on commons as a concept. <\/p>\n

I miss a clear methodological section. Now this is briefly interwoven with the text on \u201cnetwork\u201d and \u201credesigning the tent\u201d, but thus deserves more attention.
\n\u201cone of the authors of this article began to develop a collaborative and multi-sited ethnography (Marcus, 1995) from which he held interviews with the promoters of the proposal, participated in Network assemblies, meetings of the Coordinator, in the conversations for its installation as well as in its installation in the eastern zone of Montevideo during April 2018. During this installation, it was part of the previous meetings and agreements, as well as of the conversations of layout of the space; also, and at the request of the members of the tent, it was supported in the evaluation of this installation on the part of the entrepreneurs.\u201d<\/p>\n

The section of the tent is very interesting, but could have been even more valuable if some of the core ideas behind the tent were summarized in the beginning and then unraveled throughout the text. This idea of building as a research endeavour is typical to what in architecture is called \u201clive projects\u201d or \u201cdesign and build\u201d or in design \u201cprototyping\u201d. Why relations to such research practices are not made? How can we frame the tent as a research approach?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Review B<\/h2>\n
\n

Reviewer: Anonymous<\/h1>\n

1) Is the subject matter relevant?<\/h3>\n

Yes, the paper touches a relevant issue, that of how commons are infrastructured through (re)design practices. This is a relevant topic for the journal and it is also consistent with the subject of the special issue.<\/p>\n

2) Is the treatment of the subject matter intellectually interesting? Are there citations or bodies of literature you think are essential to which the author has not referred?<\/h3>\n

Overall I believe the subject matter is treated in an interesting manner. Though the paper is not innovative in its application of STS concepts to the analysis of design practices, the case study proposed is original in its context, and interesting in relation to the subject matter. As regards the literature, I think some references to STS concepts should be refined, and others included. For instance, the concept of \u201cinterpretive flexibility\u201d is attributed to Star (1999), while it has a longer history within STS, especially as part of the Social Construction of Technology approach. I think that including more references to Actor-Network Theory would also improve the authors\u2019 discussion, considering the \u201cin-the-making\u201d perspective they deploy. Where the ANT perspective is more evident within the text, the authors sometimes do not mention the original and most authoritative sources. For instance, \u201cthe idea that entities do not possess essences but that these are emergencies that in their own heterogeneity will be composed\u201d is ascribed to Dom\u00e8nech & Tirado (2005), while it should be discussed on the background of the work of Latour\/Callon\/Law. Also in the References section, prominent contributions such as Latour\u2019s We Have Never Been Modern are cited in their Spanish translation, while it would be more correct to mention their original edition.<\/p>\n

3) Are there any noticeable problems with the author\u2019s means of validating assumptions or making judgments?<\/h3>\n

There are no major problems in the structure of the discussion, but I think the paper would benefit from the inclusion of more empirical data. Including more extracts from fieldnotes and interviews would strengthen the authors\u2019 arguments, and make the article more consistent with its empirical orientation. Interviews are mentioned in the section \u201cMaking a network\u201d, but extracts within the text are limited to filednotes. The duration of the ethnography should also be specified.<\/p>\n

4) Is the article well written?<\/h3>\n

The language of the article is acceptable overall, but a language revision is highly needed.
Readability is often limited by sentences that are too long, which should be rephrased. Some terms are used in both British and American English (e.g. \u201cbehaviour\u201d and \u201cbehavior\u201d).
Furthermore, there is some confusion deriving from the references to the \u201csocial and solidarity economy\u201d as a concept, and the \u201cSocial and Solidarity Economy\u201d as an actor, which appear to be interchanged here and there throughout the text. More attention should be paid to the adoption of uppercase and lowercase to distinguish between them. The acronym SSE appears on page 11 only, but it should be reported and explained at the beginning.<\/p>\n

5) Are there portions of the article that you recommend be shortened, excised or expanded?<\/h3>\n

The Discussion section is used to conclude the article. Yet, it would be more appropriate to add a Conclusions section summarizing the article\u2019s main points, findings, and limitations.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewer: Liesbeth Huybrechts 1) Is the subject matter relevant? The article is interesting in how it revolves around one particular artefact, being a tent \u201cPut to circulate around the city, the tent is a space for conversations and exchanges, a trade fair and an exhibition space where crafts, food, architectural<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"parent":8565,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"template_full_width.php","meta":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/peerproduction.net\/editsuite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8634"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/peerproduction.net\/editsuite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/peerproduction.net\/editsuite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/peerproduction.net\/editsuite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/peerproduction.net\/editsuite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8634"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/peerproduction.net\/editsuite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9022,"href":"http:\/\/peerproduction.net\/editsuite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8634\/revisions\/9022"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/peerproduction.net\/editsuite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/peerproduction.net\/editsuite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/peerproduction.net\/editsuite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}