Integration by Infrastructuring: The Case of Subsea Environmental Monitoring in Oil and Gas Offshore Operations

摘要

This thesis investigates the development of ICT solutions for performing real-timeudsubsea environmental monitoring during oil and gas offshore operations. The research isudbased on a three-year case study of an international oil and gas company headquarteredudin Norway. The thesis is specifically focused on aspects of integration: how new tools,udsystems, and approaches are developed, and how existing ones are adapted to fit theudexisting systems and practices of the oil and gas company.udThe thesis has three goals. First, it analyzes how real-time environmental monitoringudemerges as a distributed, interacting, and interconnected sociotechnical networkud(information infrastructure). Second, it identifies how the company’s initiatives areudcurrently changing the representations of subsea environmental risk in remote andudpreviously inaccessible areas like the Arctic region. Third, it reflects on the researchudmethodology to address such a spatially distributed and long-term setting.udOn the theoretical level this work aims to contribute to the field of Information Systemsudand, marginally, to Computer-supported cooperative work. It is also inspired by Scienceudand Technology Studies. A theoretical framework is developed connecting contributionsudfrom these three streams of literature in order to characterize the co-evolution ofudenvironmental monitoring infrastructures and their phenomenon of interest,udenvironmental risk. This evolving relationship shows that, on the one hand, theudperception of environmental risk as a problem is affected by the integration mechanismsudthat generate new knowledge. On the other hand, new conceptions of environmental riskudhave consequences for the maintenance and upgrade of environmental monitoringudinfrastructures. I call this process infrastructuring.udThe thesis provides a vivid empirical illustration of how the relationship betweenudenvironmental risk and integration strategies unfolds in offshore environmentaludmonitoring. By merging the theoretical framework and the empirical case, I argue inudfavor of a flexible understanding of the development of complex systems inudorganizational settings. Studies of infrastructure should account for the existence ofudpragmatic approaches to face persistent uncertainty and the fluid relationship betweenudsituated usefulness and a cross-geographical dimension. In line with existing debates inudthe literature, I demonstrate that the traditionally bounded distinctions of systemuddesign/development/implementation and of users/designers must be overtaken whenudstudying infrastructures. On the methodological level, this thesis therefore advocates auddeeper empirical analysis of the unfolding of infrastructures in organizational realities.