User:Riviera/Thesis outline
Working Title
System Administration and Server Maintenance: Three Debates
I want to write a report on contemporary system administration and server maintenance practices. The intended audience are artist-run collectives entangled in the tendrils of Big Tech due to systemic failures. In terms of the style of writing, the audience will be engaged through accessible language, concise, positive sentences and an active voice. In terms of content, each chapter debates a question about knowledge in the field. Intersectional feminist research will play a key role in shaping the analysis of these debates.
While undertaking the research, I wish to conduct qualitative interviews with people working in European locations that provide digital infrastructure for others. I would seek consent from interviewees to record the discussion and to include the transcribed material in an appendix which will not be published. People taking part in interviews will have the option of withdrawing their consent at any time for any or no reason.
Documenting Knowledge
This is a pressing matter for system administrators (Hofmüller cited in Berends et al., 2022). What knowledge do system administrators need to document?
Key Topics: time, funding
Sharing Knowledge
According to Us(c)hi Reiter (cited in Berends et al., 2022) “[s]haring knowledge sounds easy, but it is not”. It “is also a long-term commitment”, Linda Tuhiwai Smith (2008, p.16) points out. How might system administrators pool, in accessible ways, their knowledge of sustaining community activity?
Key Topics: community, decolonisation, collaboration, accessibility
Freeing Knowledge
Secretly, this is a thesis about Linux. It seeks to persuade artists to make free software integral to their collaborative practices at every level. Why would knowledge about system administration and server maintenance contribute to widening artists’ participation in libre computing?
Key Topics: licensing, reckoning with evangelism
References
Berends, M., Diakrousi, A. and Gryllaki, A. (2022) ‘Hosting With’. Debug, Linz, Varia [Online]. Available at https://varia.zone/archive/2023-03-Hosting-with-others/hosting-with-zine-booklet.pdf (Accessed 16 October 2024).
Smith, L. T. (2008) Decolonizing methodologies: research and indigenous peoples. London, Zed Books.
Key Texts
Collins, P. H. (2019) Intersectionality as critical social theory. Durham, Duke University Press.
Nash, J. C. (2019) Black feminism reimagined: after intersectionality. Durham, Duke University Press.
Smith, L. T. (2008) Decolonizing methodologies: research and indigenous peoples. London, Zed Books.