Infrastructure Humanities | Korean-led project (2025-2031)
This project is carried out by Korean co-PIs from the Academy of Mobility Humanities at Konkuk University, with In-Seop Shin as leading PI, in collaboration with international co-PIs: Peter Adey (CGH), Peter Merriman (CeTraM), Lynne Pearce (CeMoRe), Paul Rabé (IIAS), and Tania Rossetto (MoHu). The project was awarded to Konkuk University in response to a call from the National Research Foundation of Korea.
Infrastructure Humanities is an agenda that enhances and broadens the scope of mobility humanities research, developed over the past seven years by the Academy of Mobility Humanities (AMH) at Konkuk University (Seoul). It initiates thinking about infrastructures as (im)material actants that shape and condition mobilities. Specifically, Infrastructure Humanities recognizes infrastructure as the essential determinant of human existence and a vital object of study for understanding humanity.
The infrastructural turn in humanities challenges us to reconsider infrastructure not as an external means or methods to human existence, but rather as an actant that constitutes human lives internally. It thus encourages us to understand individuals, societies, and, as their territory, the Earth itself, as ‘entities-being-with infrastructure.’ Contrary to the fetishization of infrastructure that often leads to the apocalyptic projections of the future, Infrastructure Humanities—by thinking of humans with and through infrastructure—investigates emergent practical ethics aimed at reconfiguring the relationship between humans and (im)material infrastructures in more sustainable forms.
Moreover, Infrastructure Humanities seeks to establish an international research model for infrastructure studies, building a global collaborative research platform from the humanities perspective. This research program facilitates cooperation and mutual exchanges at the grassroots level, both locally and globally. Such collaboration is necessary for addressing the infrastructure-induced polycrisis: tackling crises related to infrastructures across scales —individual, social, and planetary —requires a shared understanding of the problems among citizens, corporations, academia, governments, and international organizations. To this end, Infrastructure Humanities seeks to develop a global ecosystem for infrastructure humanities research.
