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Short abstract

This paper examines how emergent human volunteer infrastructures, namely data rescue efforts, can be maintained. We draw on semi-structured interviews with data rescuers in the United States to explore practices of waiting and maintenance during and in between times of crisis.

Long abstract

The US federal government has invested considerably in collecting societally relevant data, ranging from environmental data to national census data. These data were collected, curated and visualised by bespoke infrastructures, but are used by a wide range of government bodies, academics and civic organisations. The Trump administration has significantly disrupted the status quo of federal data, removing/editing datasets and cancelling infrastructure funding. In response, a number of activities have emerged to focus on “data rescue” - efforts to identify and secure data sets at risk. These data rescue activities can be characterised as largely volunteer-driven, emergent in times of crisis, and precariously funded.

Understanding that these times of crisis are likely to repeat, it becomes important to ask how emergent human volunteer infrastructures can be maintained both in and between crises. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with data rescuers in the United States, we examine practices of waiting and maintenance both during and in between times of crisis. We see how data rescue itself is a practice of waiting and response: waiting for data to be threatened or infrastructures to be defunded; ‘waiting it out’ for moments of crisis to pass; or of waiting for future threats, which involves “anticipatory maintenance” (Rothfritz, 2026) in times of rest as well as crisis. Our findings demonstrate that waiting is not a passive practice, but one that involves visible activities as well as more invisible moments of connection, regeneration and vulnerability.