Sensing Salmonella: Modes of Sensing and the Politics of Sensing Infrastructures

The intent with this chapter is dual: First, it aims to add to the vocabulary for analyzing the politics sensing infrastructures. Drawing on post actor-network theory sensibilities, the chapter introduces the concept of style of inference in order to analyze the politics of how different sensing infrastructures apprehend the world (cf. Fujimura & Chou; Hacking). Paraphrasing Adrian Mackenzie: different sensing infrastructures have very different ways of navigating the steadily increasing tidal wave of data—and we need to understand how these differences are integrated with society at large (Mackenzie). An important argument of the chapter is thus that different styles of inference are more or less compatible with a wider political and organizational context. For example, the value of web searches on flu symptoms are not fully trusted as evidence of flu outbreaks in the healthcare system. The style of inferring flu intensity is not stabilized. The chapter therefore contends that there is a need to understand how sensing infrastructures have different styles of inference, and how these are differently compatible with governmental action and politics. Thus, the argument is that different styles of inference are deeply implicated in a politics of sensing.

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Lee, Francis. 2021. "Sensing Salmonella: Modes of Sensing and the Politics of Sensing Infrastructures." In Sensing In/Security: Sensors as Transnational Security Infrastructures, edited by Nina Witjes, Nikolaus Pöchhacker, and Geoffrey C. Bowker, 97-131. London: Mattering Press. http://doi.org/10.28938/9781912729111