Synthetic Knowing: The Politics of the Internet of Things

TL;DR

This paper explores how the Internet of Things enables a form of knowing called synthetic knowing, characterized by liquefaction and open-endedness, with a case study on marine environmental monitoring in the Arctic.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of synthetic knowing informed by digital materiality, emphasizing liquefaction and open-endedness, supported by a longitudinal IoT case study.

Findings

Sensors conjure phenomenological reality.

Knowing is scoped and configurable.

Open data is politically charged.

Abstract

All knowing is material. The challenge for Information Systems (IS) research is to specify how knowing is material by drawing on theoretical characterizations of the digital. Synthetic knowing is knowing informed by theorizing digital materiality. We focus on two defining qualities: liquefaction (unhinging digital representations from physical objects, qualities, or processes) and open-endedness (extendable and generative). The Internet of Things (IoT) is crucial because sensors are vehicles of liquefaction. Their expanding scope for real-time seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and touching increasingly mimics phenomenologically perceived reality. Empirically, we present a longitudinal case study of IoT-rendered marine environmental monitoring by an oil and gas company operating in the politically contested Arctic. We characterize synthetic knowing into four concepts, the former three tied to liquefaction and the latter to open-endedness: (i) the objects of knowing are algorithmic phenomena; (ii) the sensors increasingly conjure up phenomenological reality; (iii) knowing is scoped (configurable); and (iv) open knowing/data is politically charged.