Doctoral Dissertation Research: Computer Servers and User Communities

计算机服务器是互联网连接的组成部分，在当代人类互动中发挥着核心作用。服务器存储信息，允许共享计算资源，通过网络连接传真机和打印机，支持数字视频和音频文件流，等等。在物理上，服务器可以是大型单个设备，也可以是在没有用户直接输入的情况下连续运行的此类设备的集合。在天平的另一端是小型服务器，即为特定目的连接用户网络的计算机，如私人电子邮件服务器。服务器的位置、所有权和操作对其持有的数据的隐私和安全至关重要。但是，尽管服务器是不可或缺的，但它在我们生活的背景下工作，对普通用户来说基本上是遥远和隐蔽的。在该奖项支持的研究中，研究人员对研究生进行基于经验的科学实地工作的方法进行了培训，研究人员调查了用户如何理解这种“看不见”但不可或缺的技术，以及这种理解如何影响用户如何积极地与他们所依赖的服务器相关、交互和保护。这项研究对于想要了解现代技术如何改变时间和地点观念的社会科学家以及相关政策制定者了解技术的政治和社会影响都很重要。这项研究将由加州大学欧文分校人类学博士生埃文·康纳韦进行，汤姆·博尔斯托夫博士担任指导。由于服务器类型和用户的多样性如此之大，研究人员选择将重点放在特定用户社区使用的服务器上。这将使他能够比他试图涵盖所有服务器和所有用户时更深入地研究问题。他选择的社区是那些使用服务器进行角色扮演活动的社区。研究人员将探索这些用户的区域分层样本如何以及在多大程度上将服务器视为自身的场所；作为存储和练习记忆的机器；作为有意义的文化对象。他将进一步研究这些体验如何影响用户部署服务器的方式，以及他们如何理解时间、地点和属性。康纳韦将与三个小组进行为期12个月的人种学田野调查，这些小组不是通过一个直接感兴趣的网络联系在一起的，而是通过与服务器的这种共同接触而联系在一起的。他将通过参与者观察、访谈、调查和档案研究来收集数据。这项研究的结果将解决围绕互联网基础设施位置、数据所有权和安全以及知识产权法中新出现的问题的争论和争议。这一裁决反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Computer servers, the building blocks of internet connectivity, play a central role in contemporary human interaction. Servers store information, permit computing resource sharing, connect fax machines and printers over networks, support digital video and audio file streaming, and much more. Physically, a server may be a large single device or a collection of such devices that run continuously without direct user input. At the other end of the scale are small servers, computers that connect a network of users for a particular purpose, such as a private email server. Server location, ownership, and operation are critical to the privacy and security of the data they hold. But despite being indispensable, servers work in the background of our lives and remain essentially distant and hidden for the average user. In the research supported by this award, which trains a graduate student in methods of conducting empirically-grounded scientific fieldwork, the researcher investigates how users understand this "invisible" but indispensable technology, and how that understanding affects how users actively relate to, interact with, and protect the servers on which they depend. The research is important for social scientists wanting to understand how ideas of time and place are changed by modern technologies, as well as for policy makers concerned to understand technology's political and social effects.The research will be conducted by University of California, Irvine, anthropology doctoral student Evan Conaway, who is supervised by Dr. Tom Boellstorff. Because there is such a wide diversity of server types and users, the researcher has chosen to focus on the servers used by one particular user community. This will allow him to study the issues in greater depth than would be possible if he attempted to cover all servers and all users. The community he has chosen are those who employ servers for role-taking activities. The researcher will explore how and to what extent a regionally stratified sample of these users experience servers as places in and of themselves; as machines for the storage and practice of memory; and as meaningful cultural objects. He will further examine how those experiences affect how the users deploy servers as well as how they understand time, place, and property. Mr. Conaway will conduct twelve months of ethnographic fieldwork with three groups connected not by a direct network of interest, but by this common engagement with servers. He will collect data through participant observation, interviews, surveys, and archival research. Findings from the research will address debates and controversies around the location of internet infrastructure, data ownership and security, and emerging issues in intellectual property law.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.