Author: Dietmar Offenhuber File Type: pdf The relationship between infrastructure governance and the ways we read and represent waste systems, examined through three waste tracking and participatory sensing projects.Waste is material information. Landfills are detailed records of everyday consumption and behavior much of what we know about the distant past we know from discarded objects unearthed by archaeologists and interpreted by historians. And yet the systems and infrastructures that process our waste often remain opaque. In this book, Dietmar Offenhuber examines waste from the perspective of information, considering emerging practices and technologies for making waste systems legible and how the resulting datasets and visualizations shape infrastructure governance. He does so by looking at three waste tracking and participatory sensing projects in Seattle, Sao Paulo, and Boston.Offenhuber expands the notion of urban legibility -- the idea that the city can be read like a text -- to introduce the concept of infrastructure legibility. He argues that infrastructure governance is enacted through representations of the infrastructural system, and that these representations stem from the different stakeholders interests, which drive their efforts to make the system legible. The Trash Track project in Seattle used sensor technology to map discarded items through the waste and recycling systems the Forager project looked at the informal organization processes of waste pickers working for Brazilian recycling cooperatives and mobile systems designed by the city of Boston allowed residents to report such infrastructure failures as potholes and garbage spills. Through these case studies, Offenhuber outlines an emerging paradigm of infrastructure governance based on acomplex negotiation among users, technology, and the city. **

Author: Ruth Abbey File Type: pdf Charles Taylor (b. 1931) is one of the most influential and prolific philosophers in the English-speaking world. His unusually broad interests range from artificial intelligence to theories of meaning, from German idealism to contemporary multiculturalism. Ruth Abbey, in the first systematic single-authored study of this extraordinary thinker, offers a stimulating overview of his contribution to some of philosophys enduring debates.The core chapters take up Taylors approaches to moral theory, selfhood, political theory, and epistemology. Alone, these chapters constitute a solid introduction to Charles Taylor. However, the author also offers a great deal to those interested in pursuing the links across his positions, defining Taylor in terms of both his political engagement and his particular form of anti-foundationalism. In addition, she engages with some of the secondary literature to correct common misreadings of Taylors writings. Abbey concludes by outlining Taylors most recent reflections on what it means to live in a secular age and pointing to likely future directions of his work.This book makes accessible one of the most read and discussed philosophers of our day. It will serve as an ideal companion to Taylors own writings for students of philosophy and political theory. And it will be welcomed as well by the nonspecialist seeking an authoritative guide to Taylors large, disparate body of work.Amazon.com ReviewThe first things you notice about Charles Taylor are his eyebrows. Indeed, they appear to bristle from Ruth Abbeys cover photograph, lending him an air of farsightedness that is entirely appropriate for his intellectual depth. Taylor is one of the rare philosophers today who occupies an intellectuals role in the public sphere and also enjoys a distinguished reputation in academia. In particular, his work on political theory finds expression in his activism in the politics of his native Canada. In academia, he is probably best known for Sources of the Self, a lengthy but widely read volume on modern identity and morality that is one of the most important recent contributions to the social sciences and humanities.Abbeys short survey of Taylor is particularly notable because his work spans a breadth that includes science, ethics, politics, history, language, epistemology, and art. Her approach is carefully accurate, eschewing reductionism just as Taylor himself refuses the temptation to reduce complexity to single principles. She successfully addresses herself to a thinker whose multifaceted thought often defies simple category divisions. Taylor is one of the most fascinating and articulate voices on todays philosophical scene, and Abbey has provided us with a useful field guide to his work. Her book represents a valuable companion to Taylors philosophy, as well as a thoughtful articulation in its own right. --Eric de PlaceReviewA clear, reliable and up-to-date introduction to Charles Taylors philosophy. -- Arto Laitinem, Radical PhilosophyThis comprehensive study of Charles Taylors philosophy is timely and useful Taylor is one of the most significant living philosophers, and such an exposition is long overdue. . . . It will be a treasured friend to accompany explorations of Taylors writings by readers across the many disciplines impacted by his thought. -- ChoiceFew books can match the timeliness of Charles Taylor. -- Mark Redhead, The Review of Politics