• No results found

'Monsters' and 'Mess' on the Railways

N/A
N/A
Protected

Academic year: 2021

Share "'Monsters' and 'Mess' on the Railways"

Copied!
2
0
0

Bezig met laden.... (Bekijk nu de volledige tekst)

Hele tekst

(1)

VU Research Portal

'Monsters' and 'Mess' on the Railways Willems, T.A.H.

2018

document version

Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record

Link to publication in VU Research Portal

citation for published version (APA)

Willems, T. A. H. (2018). 'Monsters' and 'Mess' on the Railways: Coping with Complexity in Infrastructure Breakdowns.

General rights

Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights.

• Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research.

• You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ?

Take down policy

If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim.

E-mail address:

vuresearchportal.ub@vu.nl

Download date: 14. Oct. 2021

(2)

Thijs Willems

Coping with Complexity in Infrastructure Breakdowns

'Monsters' and 'Mess' on the Railways

We live in a world where nearly everything we do is made possible by infrastructures.

Infrastructures are the structures and built constructions that define how we move, travel, communicate, store, dispose of stuff, buy, sell, distribute, arrange, organize, etc. They are so basic in our daily lives that they generally, and paradoxically, operate invisibly on the background of society. It is not until it breaks down that infrastructure comes to us as something meaningful, something to scrutinize and investigate.

In this dissertation, Thijs Willems studies various infrastructure breakdowns in the Dutch railway system, ranging from daily delayed trains to a winter-storm and railroad suicides.

Using an ethnographic approach, the dissertation unravels these breakdowns through the eyes of the employees that are involved in their management. Drawing on plenty of detailed empirical data gathered through observations, informal talk, as well as interviews, the dissertation sets out to understand what is at the core of infrastructure breakdowns:

their complexity. Two different perspectives on complexity are discerned: one in which complexity shows up as an enemy – as a ‘Monster’ or as ‘Mess’ – that must be tamed and managed, and one in which railway employees cope with complexity by embracing it and dealing with it in practice. In several engaging chapters, what turns out as truly disruptive is not the breakdown per se but the ways in which the two perspectives on how to cope with complexity interrelate and are played out.

The dissertation shows that distinctions between infrastructures that either function or are broken down cannot be drawn unproblematically. Rather, it urges us to rethink infrastructure as a process – rather than an object – in which breakdowns and repair work are constitutive of how it functions on a daily basis.

‘Monsters’ and ‘Mess’ on the RailwaysThijs Willems

9 7 8 9 4 6 2 9 5 8 3 0 2 ISBN 978-94-6295-830-2

Referenties

GERELATEERDE DOCUMENTEN

Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of

Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of

Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of

Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of

Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of

Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of

Dit laat zien dat het omgaan met comple iteit in de praktijk situationeel is, en dat comple iteit eerder wordt omarmd dan dat geprobeerd wordt het te reduceren.. In de laatste

Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of