Last Updated on July 16, 2026 by Karl Thompson
When most people think about infrastructure, they picture obvious physical things: roads, bridges, railway lines, electricity pylons or perhaps broadband cables. Infrastructure seems tangible and largely the concern of engineers.
But the sociologist Susan Leigh Star argued that infrastructure is something much broader—and much stranger.
In her influential 1999 article The Ethnography of Infrastructure, Star suggested that some of the most important parts of modern society are precisely the things we rarely notice. In fact, infrastructure is often invisible until it stops working.
It’s a deceptively simple idea that has become enormously influential across sociology, science and technology studies, and geography. It also provides one of the strongest theoretical foundations for understanding twenty-first century society.
Why Infrastructure Matters
Star begins with an unusual challenge for sociologists.
Instead of studying dramatic events, political conflicts or social movements, she argues we should study what she jokingly calls the “boring things.”
Things like:
- plugs
- technical standards
- computer protocols
- bureaucratic forms
- databases
- classification systems
- filing systems
These rarely make newspaper headlines, yet they quietly organise enormous parts of everyday life.
Think about your daily routine.
You probably unlock your phone without wondering how mobile networks operate. You tap your bank card without thinking about payment systems. You stream music without considering where it is stored. You expect clean drinking water, electricity and internet access to simply exist.
Only when something fails—a power cut, banking outage or internet blackout—does this hidden infrastructure suddenly become visible.
Infrastructure Is Relational
One of Star’s most important ideas is that infrastructure is relational.
Infrastructure is not simply a collection of objects.
Instead, something becomes infrastructure only in relation to a particular activity.
For someone cooking dinner, the water supply is invisible infrastructure. Turn on the tap and water appears.
For a plumber repairing a burst pipe, however, that same water system is no longer infrastructure—it is the object of work.
Likewise, a staircase functions as invisible infrastructure for most people entering a building, but becomes an obstacle for someone using a wheelchair.
Infrastructure therefore depends on perspective.
The same object can be invisible support for one person while being a problem or workplace for another.
The Eight Characteristics of Infrastructure
Star identifies several features that distinguish infrastructure from other technologies.
1. It is embedded
Infrastructure is woven into other technologies, organisations and social practices.
Electricity supports almost everything we do, yet we rarely think about the national grid until the lights go out.
2. It becomes transparent
Successful infrastructure disappears into the background.
The better it works, the less we notice it.
3. It extends across space and time
Infrastructure has reach.
A payment made in a supermarket may involve local internet connections, national banking systems and international financial networks operating simultaneously.
4. It is learned
People rarely receive formal lessons in using infrastructure.
Instead, they gradually become members of systems.
Children learn roads.
Students learn university systems.
Office workers learn email etiquette.
Over time these infrastructures become completely taken for granted.
5. It reflects social conventions
Infrastructure both shapes society and is shaped by existing social practices.
The familiar QWERTY keyboard survives largely because millions of people already know how to use it.
6. It depends upon standards
Modern society functions because countless technical standards allow different systems to connect.
Think of USB ports, shipping containers, internet protocols or railway gauges.
Without standardisation, infrastructure quickly fragments.
7. It builds upon older systems
Infrastructure rarely starts from scratch.
New technologies inherit older ones.
Fibre-optic cables often follow Victorian railway routes.
Cloud computing still depends upon electricity grids built decades earlier.
Modern infrastructure grows by adapting existing foundations.
8. We notice it when it breaks
Perhaps Star’s most famous observation is that infrastructure becomes visible during failure.
A banking outage suddenly reminds us how dependent we are on digital payment networks.
A power cut reveals how much of everyday life relies upon electricity.
Breakdowns expose the hidden systems that usually remain invisible.
Invisible Work
Star also reminds us that infrastructure depends upon people whose work often goes unnoticed.
Systems appear automatic, but behind every apparently seamless technology are countless workers maintaining, repairing and coordinating them.
These include technicians, administrators, cleaners, software engineers, standards committees, call centre staff and maintenance workers.
Modern infrastructure appears effortless only because enormous amounts of labour remain hidden.
Infrastructure Contains Politics
One of Star’s most important arguments is that infrastructure is never politically neutral.
Every technical system embodies assumptions about how society should work.
Categories on official forms, software defaults, medical classifications and transport systems all reflect decisions about what counts as normal, who belongs and who may be excluded.
Because these decisions become embedded in infrastructure, they often disappear from public debate.
Politics is quietly built into the systems themselves.
Why This Matters Today
Although Star wrote this paper in 1999, her ideas feel even more relevant today.
Artificial intelligence depends on data centres, fibre-optic cables and cloud computing.
Cashless payments rely on global financial infrastructure.
Remote working depends upon broadband networks.
Social media rests upon vast digital platforms supported by enormous physical infrastructure.
Most of these systems remain largely invisible to the people who depend upon them.
This makes Star’s central insight especially valuable.
To understand modern society, we need to study not only governments, markets and social institutions, but also the hidden infrastructures that quietly organise everyday life.
A New Way of Thinking About Society
Susan Leigh Star transformed the study of infrastructure by encouraging sociologists to pay attention to what usually fades into the background.
Instead of asking only how societies are organised politically or economically, she encouraged us to ask a different question:
What hidden systems make everyday life possible?
That question has become even more important in an increasingly digital world.
Infrastructure is no longer simply something beneath our feet.
It is increasingly something beneath our everyday experiences.
Further Reading on ReviseSociology
If you found this article interesting, you might also enjoy:
- What Are Data Centres? — Why the factories powering AI and cloud computing have become essential infrastructure.
- Fibre-Optic Cables: The Hidden Network Beneath Britain — The physical backbone of the internet.
- Cloud Computing Explained — How we quietly moved from owning computers to renting computing power.
- The Hidden Infrastructure of Everyday Life (series) — An ongoing series exploring the digital, physical, financial and institutional systems that organise modern society.
Together these articles explore one of sociology’s most important contemporary questions:
What hidden infrastructures shape the way we live?