Paper short abstract:

The paper considers the concept of the idea component — an idea embedded in the infrastructure. These ideas make the infrastructure open to connect with imaginaries already existing in society. The empirical material of the paper is research on space internet infrastructure.

Paper long abstract:

The studies of infrastructure are primarily interested in the effects of the operation of infrastructure — inequality, access, and how infrastructure participates in maintaining a particular social and political order (e.g., Anand, 2011). However, studies of the history of infrastructure growth also seem productive for this interest, as they provide insight into the ideas embedded in infrastructure. I enact Thomas Park Hughes' conceptualization of (large) technical systems (Hughes, 1983).

Hughes bypasses the ideas associated with infrastructure and even refers to the inventors as 'geniuses' and does not question the ideological underpinnings of their work. To address this shortcoming, I propose the «idea component» concept.

Idea components are ideas embedded in a (large) technical system by its creators and users. I'll show why I am not satisfied with the existing approaches to studying ideas — utopias and sociotechnical imaginaries — both approaches pay too much attention to the interpretation of discourse, while it may or may not relate to the actual design of infrastructure (for the former, see Collins, 2008; for the latter, Valentine, 2012). On the contrary, the idea component makes the infrastructure open to connection with imaginaries already existing in society — like «sovereignty» or «global network». Thus, the idea, formerly an abstract category, is placed within a system and became the object of ethnographic observation, not only the object of interpretive method.

Finally, I'll present the results of empirical research — an investigation into the history of the space internet and the ideas embedded in these emerging systems.