Socio-spatial implications of converging physical and digital infrastructures for crisis management : Ethnography of two service technician working environments of a power provider company

The basis of this article is an ethnographical study conducted in a German electricity provider company. The energy supply sector is an important domain in the field of emergency management research since electricity providers maintain an important infrastructure in various crisis scenarios. There exist many dependencies and interrelations between power infrastructure providers and authorities and corporations in cases of emergency. The maintenance workers of electricity infrastructures deal on a daily basis with problems that may emerge into a crisis on a larger scale. Our paper focuses this special division of the company – service workers in two different regions, one department located in a major German city and the other in a rural area. The categories of convergence of physical and electronical working appliances and infrastructures and socio-spatially bound knowledge serve to understand and analyse the work practices of the service workers as preliminary investigations to system development. Within these categories we also comment on the methodological implications for ethnographic analysis and technology development processes.