Digital Boundary Infrastructures of Analogue Boundary Objects Require More Than Data Standards

The concept of boundary object is an analytical tool for studying collabora-tion between different social worlds. The paper studies conditions for ac-tors to successfully digitise material boundary objects. Data standards, seen as components of the boundary infrastructure, are neither sufficient nor necessary to match the original representations and the standard practices of actors about a boundary object, in order to collaborate. A data standard and the associated interfaces might be boundary objects on the digital platforms of a subgroup of actors. But the digital boundary infrastructure that sup-ports various representations of a boundary object, i.e., its digital chimera, requires artefacts closer to actors’ practices than data types and their API. The paper illustrates and discusses the process of digitising boundary ob-jects on examples in healthcare and agriculture.