Short abstract:

Using examples from two Nordic countries, this presentation explores how some countries have begun to market and brand their national digital resources using methods and practices drawn from the commercial sector. The presentation will draw connections to the notion of digital nationalism.

Long abstract:

This presentation will examine changes that have taken place during the past ten years in two Nordic countries: Denmark and Finland. Drawing on research conducted in the field of biobanking and medical health care it explores how these two countries have started to brand their populations and the data that is collected and stored from them for research purposes. I argue that many of these practices represent and draw on new forms of nationalism which are expressed particularly within the digital realm. The processes in which states seek to develop new forms of capitalization of data derived from the population deserve attention since they introduce normative assumptions and imagery related to nations and connect them to new forms of digital artifacts. Exploring population branding introduces new perspectives into the digital nationalism discussion as many of the rhetorical devices build on existing, and sometimes long-standing nationalistic imagery and rhetoric.

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:

The IEFC was developed in the 1980s as a response to the timber-oriented forest inventories of the Franco era. The Catalan government used the IEFC to promote regional autonomy, and the making of the database was embedded in a wave of post-dictatorship Catalan techno-nationalism.

Long abstract:

The Ecological and Forestry Inventory of Catalonia (IEFC) was the flagship project of the newly founded Ecological and Forestry Applications Research Centre (CREAF) in Barcelona. It was Catalunya’s first ecological forest inventory, led by ecologists who saw themselves as critically responding to the productivist forest engineering that characterized forest policy throughout Franco’s dictatorship. CREAF was founded upon the values of a socially responsible, democratic science of ecology, and was part of the new Catalan nationalism. The IEFC fed from “new ecologic data” of forests beyond timber and was designed to track the effect of climate change on European forests. The Catalan government used the IEFC to promote Catalan science as a European science, bypassing the Spanish state. The ecologists, in their association with the Institute for Catalan Studies, saw the new mapping as contributing to the conservation of Catalan culture at large: language and forest function together as one. Based on archival documentation and a nascent oral history collection, this paper tells the story of the rise of terrestrial ecology and the technical and political difficulties of making the IEFC database: putting it together, making it useful, and integrating it with Spanish databases. By interviewing not only the leading scientists who participated in the ideological moulding of the IEFC, but by including the voices of technicians, secretaries, and forest rangers who participated in the project, I hope to shed some light on how a diverse array of actors articulated (or didn’t) the new wave of post-dictatorship Catalan techno-nationalism.

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.

Short abstract:

My research project assesses how Chinese national identity is daily and discursively (re)generated by ordinary users as individual consumers and fans of popular culture on the Chinese Internet.

Long abstract:

A further investigation into how Chinese national(ist) discourses are daily (re)shaped online by diverse socio-political actors (especially ordinary users) can contribute to not only deeper understandings of Chinese national sentiments on China’s Internet but also richer insights into the socio-technical ecology of the contemporary Chinese digital (and physical) world. I adopt an ethnographic methodology with Sina Weibo and bilibili as ‘fieldsites’. The data collection method is virtual ethnographic observation of everyday national(ist) discussions on both sites. On each ‘fieldsite’, I observe how different socio-political actors contribute to the discursive (re)generation of Chinese national identity on a day-to-day basis with attention to forms and content of national(ist) accounts that they publicise on each ‘fieldsite’, contextual factors of their posting and reposting of and commenting on national(ist) narratives and their interactions with other users about certain national(ist) discourses on each platform. Critical discourse analysis is employed to analyse data. From November 2021 to December 2022, I conducted 36 weeks’ observations with 36 sets of fieldnotes. Based on fieldnotes of the first week’s observations, I found multifarious national(ist) discourses on both ‘fieldsites’. Second, Sina Weibo and bilibili users have agency in interpreting and deploying concrete national(ist) discourses despite the leading role played by the government and the two platforms in deciding on the basic framework of national expressions. Third, the (re)production process of national(ist) discourses on Sina Weibo and bilibili depends upon not only technical affordances and limitations of the two sites but also some established socio-political mechanisms and conventions in offline China.

Short abstract:

This paper attends to the constitutive role of digitalization to emerging articulations of nationalism, modernity, and postcolonial development in contemporary India. The primary analytic focus is on the state-promotion and discourses around the 2015 "Digital India" federal policy.

Long abstract:

In February 2014, during his campaign for Prime Minister, Narendra Modi laid out a simple formula to promise a bright future: “IT + IT = IT: Indian Talent + Information Technology = India Tomorrow. Thus, internally, and globally, the IT sector can become a shining light of Brand India” (Modi 2014). The transformation into ‘India Tomorrow,’ he assured, would be all but guaranteed with his vision—that “India should become ‘DIGITAL INDIA’”(Modi 2014). Within his first one hundred days in office, Modi manifested this vision: announcing plans for a flagship federal policy named “Digital India,” imagined as an ambitious modernizing measure “to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy” (“Vision and Vision Areas | Digital India Programme” 2017).

This paper attends to the rhetorical work of state-led digitalization efforts to analyze these visions of transformation. I examine a multi-modal archive of state artifacts on Digital India including promotional films, mobile applications, radio shows, policy handbooks, and public statements by high-ranking Ministers—national addresses, op-eds, speeches at various governmental and non-governmental events (2014-2022). This archive represents the extensive institutional rhetoric on digitalization in contemporary India to demonstrate the emergence of a rhetoric of ‘digital development.’ I argue that rhetorics of digital development be studied as offshoots of long-standing techno-nationalistic imaginaries built around postcolonial preoccupations around science, technology, religion, and development. By tracing these discursive histories, and analyzing their reinvention throughout my archive, I show that the digital development promoted under Digital India promises a distinctly populist techno-nationalistic imaginary of India.