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- Convenors:
-
Nelli Piattoeva
(Tampere University)
Aaro Tupasela (University of Helsinki)
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- Format:
- Traditional Open Panel
- Location:
- Aurora, main building
- Sessions:
- Thursday 18 July, -
Time zone: Europe/Amsterdam
Short Abstract:
We explore the reshaping and reproduction of nations and nationalism in the policies and sociomaterial practices of digitalization and datafication. Using digital nationalism we ask how digital and data-driven technologies create new forms of national identity, territory, imaginary, memory and more.
Long Abstract:
This open panel explores the notion of digital nationalism where digitalization and datafication reshape and reproduce nations, nation-states and nationalism in new ways. As a political principal nationalism equates the state as a bounded territory with a cultural community performing itself as sharing common traits. Nationalism as discourse (Özkirimli, 2010) builds on broader claims of a shared identity, spatiality and temporality, constructing a frame of reference for making sense of and structuring reality. Old and new conceptions of territory, identity, memory, inclusion and exclusion, among others, (re)emerge through the sociomaterial work of digital and data driven technologies, the policies and discourses that promote them also in the new spaces of digital and often virtual communities such as transnational diasporas or corporate networks (Tupasela, 2021; Couldry and Mejias, 2019; Kitchin, 2014; Trigo, 2003). Across public and private domains some technologies may become powerful tools of communicating and stabilizing social and cultural norms through material and affective, spectacular and mundane means (Larkin, 2008). For instance, historically and contemporarily nations have deployed large-scale infrastructures to bind themselves physically and affectively (Barney, 2017). Technological innovations and aspirations are also indicative of and nurture visions and collective imaginaries of the future (Jasanoff, 2015) whereby different policies and practices play generative and mediating roles between nationalism and technologies. The development of technologies and technological infrastructures entails deliberate or unintentional choices of inclusion and exclusion.
Our panel will discuss these and other emerging forms of digital nationalism to start building an intellectual community focused on this phenomenon. We invite presentations which engage with historical or contemporary empirical cases including but not limited to:
- Education
- Immigration
- Social media and virtual communities
- National digital policies and infrastructures
- Medical technologies
- Visual representations
- Cultural institutions
- Corporate and commercial activities
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 18 July, 2024, -Short abstract:
This paper investigates the digital infrastructuring of education as part of the wider turn towards digital nationalism in Estonia. The focus is hereby put on the power and transformation of intermediary actors in relation to (inclusive/exclusive) mechanisms of ‘national’ technical infrastructuring.
Long abstract:
This paper engages with the ongoing transformation of Estonia into a ‘digital nation’. More specifically, it investigates dynamics of, and actor constellations around, educational data infrastructuring within that transformation. The study is hereby situated in an expanding field of research that is interested in both human (e.g., data managers) and non-human (e.g., platforms) ‘intermediaries’ which together deeply affect (not only) educational infrastructuring dynamics. Contributing to that field, and taking up perspectives from Actor-Network Theory and Social Topology, the paper suggests to approach intermediaries through a lens on performative contexting (Asdal and Moser, 2012), and contexting as labor and strategy of governance. In doing so, the focus is shifted to how intermediary contexting is used, by whom and where exactly, rather than seeking to map intermediaries as an object ‘from the outside’. Both data infrastructuring and digital nationalism can be regarded, then, as part and as a result of such contexting efforts. Using Estonia as a case study, it is shown what we see (differently) when applying such a lens. The findings hereby indicate the gradual emergence of what could be described as ‘governance by intermediarization’: a process in which more and more actors of the digital nation - public and private - are shifted into the (self)contexting as infrastructural stewards, while the politics of digital transformation become centered around asserting continuous change through (not only national) digital connection.
Short abstract:
We explore how datafication of the English population from the age of 4, with national standardised digital testing of pupils’ early numeracy and literacy skills which excludes assessment of competence in any language other than English, reinforces a narrow economic and mono-linguistic nationalism.
Long abstract:
This paper presents the contemporary case study of the RBA (Reception Baseline Assessment), an algorithmically-driven national test of all four year-olds in England introduced in 2021 by the Department for Education, as an example of new ways in which digitalisation can reproduce and reshape nationalism. From 2028, the data from this assessment will be added to the existing national systems by which primary schools are held accountable (Roberts-Holmes and Kaufmann). We argue that this test, which focuses on early numeracy and literacy skills but is conducted exclusively in English, is underpinned by an algorithm that excludes linguistic diversity, producing political assemblages that are both driven by and generative of a neoliberal monocultural national identity. Nationalistic discourses are evident in this sociotechnical system which communicates and stabilises monolingual norms in schools rather than acknowledging and embracing the diverse linguistic heritages of parts of the population. The RBA forms part of a broader picture of international testing which promotes economic nationalism (Mihelj and Jiménez-Martínez, 2020), pitting nations against each other in a skills race.
Such national datafication also generates new forms of digital territory, extending the boundaries of the nation into cloud-based realms and creating new spaces of extraction (Mohamed et al., 2020). It generates new power dynamics between the nation-state and its populace, as data is mined from even its youngest citizens without their consent, a different imaginary from the pre-datafication era when citizens entered into a more transparent relationship with the state as guardian rather than neocolonialist extractor (Zembylas, 2023).
Short abstract:
Many countries share knowledge and best practices in public digitalisation. But with knowledge sharing comes a sharing of politics and values made durable through code, design and processes. We describe public sector knowledge sharing as a transnational network of artefacts, events and expertise.
Long abstract:
Public digitalisation efforts in many countries are rapidly approaching their ‘teenage years’ with flagship digitalisation projects such as GOV.UK in the UK and the Danish identification infrastructure EasyID emerging in the early 2010s. Many of these earlier adopters of digitalisation have had the opportunity to consolidate their approaches and share their knowledge with other nations who are at the start of that road; a practice that only solidifies their status as exceptional digital frontrunners.
However, what has so far received little attention are questions related to the types of politics and values that are carried from one nation to another when their approaches to digitalisation are emulated. As formulated by Tsing (2005), the moments of ‘friction’ these attempts at ‘global connection’ spark. In our presentation we discuss the framing and approach of our research project DIGI-FRONT, where we conceptualize knowledge sharing of best practices in digitalisation as a transnational network of artefacts (e.g. Kelty 2008), expertise (Chong 2018) and events (Pinch 1993).
We suggest that nations distribute knowledge through code and design patterns, expertise through formal and informal bilateral visits and exchanges, and share best practices and set collective projects and strategies through events such as conferences, meet-ups and summits. We draw on examples from the UK, Denmark and Israel to illustrate how knowledge sharing in digital transformation is not only a managerial endeavour meant to increase public sector efficiency but also a mode of asserting a nation’s image and values through technology.
Short abstract:
Examining Hong Kong's sticker packs on messaging apps reveals evolving localism post-2019 protests, fostering everyday identity and nationalism. Analyzing digital channels and visual elements highlights their role in identity maintenance and dissemination.
Long abstract:
Hong Kong, in the past decade, has seen the development of different strands of localism. Some simply meant to appreciate Hong Kong culture, while others attached political demands. This abstract looks at one form of this localism in the sticker packs and gifs popular in Hong Kong chat messaging apps such as Telegram, signal, and WhatsApp. Using publicly available popular sticker packs, I look at how these banal instances of localism foster an everyday sense of Hong Kongness, which in some cases edges towards nationalism. These align with what Ismangil and Schneider (2023) termed digital agitprop, wherein online channels are used to foster and spread a visual common during the 2019 Anti-Extradition Bill protests. While the demonstrations have long stopped, these sticker packs serve as echoes of the movement and form part of digital identity and nation making on an everyday level. I contribute to instances of everyday nationalism (Antonsich, 2020), extending the range of banal nationalisms (Billig, 1995) outside of the gaze of the state. I pay attention to things. First, the digital distribution channels and affordances of different social media channels, focusing on WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal, and second, the visual makeup of the different sticker packs themselves and how their digital nature helps maintain and spread a sense of identity.