Dear all,
Tomorrow we conclude this semester's seminar series with an interesting
presentation on Surveillance and the Digital Welfare State by Kathryn Henne
and Jenna Harb at 9.30AM Brussels Time. Registration is still open and free of
charge, you can register
HERE.
Please find more information below:
Introduction:
In 2019, the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
criticised the growing reliance on automation and digital technologies in the
provision of social welfare. Warning about the rise of the "digital welfare
state", he condemned Big Tech and private actors' increased influence on
social assistance delivery, growing surveillance, and ineffective
self-regulation.
Digital sociologists caution against subscribing to over-arching narratives
about surveillance and advocate for better understanding how it operates in
everyday life. Drawing on a larger multi-sited study, we examine negotiations
among practitioners and digital technologies in the delivery of social
assistance. Through an analysis of emergency and humanitarian responses to the
2020 Beirut Port explosion, we isolate a set of competing tensions: While many
technologies encourage business rationalities, cost-cutting measures, and
customer-oriented approaches, practitioners endeavour to localise aid as part
of calls to decolonise humanitarianism. The logics and functionality of
digital tools often undermine practitioners' efforts.
After mapping out the contextual dynamics surrounding the Lebanese case, we
explain the mundane practices of digitised welfare programming. In doing so,
we elaborate on how they reify power asymmetries that are better understood as
hybridised, not simply dominance by Big Tech. We conclude by reflecting on how
the philanthro-capitalist tendencies of the digital welfare state evince
colonial dynamics that are neither fully state-centric nor private
sector-driven.
About the speakers:
Jenna Imad Harb is a PhD candidate and member of the Justice and Technoscience
Lab in the ANU School of Regulation and Global Governance (RegNet). She has
published in areas of protest surveillance, policing technologies, anti-sexual
violence technologies and data protection, and financialised welfare
surveillance and regulation. Focusing on cash-based assistance and emergency
response to the Beirut Port explosion, Jenna's dissertation examines how
social assistance and humanitarian systems in Lebanon adapt to ongoing crises,
drawing on science and technology studies, regulatory governance, and
transnational feminist theories.
Professor Kathryn (Kate) Henne is the Director of RegNet, where she also leads
the Justice and Technoscience Lab, and is an Adjunct Professor at Arizona
State University. Her research is concerned with the interface between
inequality, technoscience, and regulation. She has published widely on
biometric surveillance, criminological knowledge production, human enhancement
and wellbeing, regulatory science, and technologies of policing. She
previously held the Canada Research Chair in Biogovernance, Law and Society at
the University of Waterloo, where she was also a Fellow of the Balsillie
School of International Affairs.
Kind regards,
Bram Visser
PhD Candidate at the VUB Chair in Surveillance Studies
PR & Communication for Privacy Salon & CPDP
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