Short Abstract

Loopholes are an integral but understudied part of techno-scientific systems. How can we develop concepts, theories, and methodologies in STS by studying loopholes across a range of practices and fieldsites?

Description

Loopholes are an integral part of techno-scientific systems. Hackers, tax advisors, bureaucrats, privacy activists, human traffickers, pests, prisoners, management consultants, and video gamers all take advantage of openings in seemingly closed arrangements. No matter how rigid or formalized a set of rules may seem, people tend to find (perceived) ‘glitches’ (Katz 2010) that allow them to exist, succeed, or undermine constraints. Loopholes, in other words, are both fatal flaws and generative features that challenge what can be done in formal systems of control.

This open panel uses loopholes as a lens to rethink, challenge, and develop longstanding work in STS on gaming, classification, commensuration, governance, control, tinkering, impostering and workarounds. Loopholes are often seen as absences – as blind spots within or between rules, which are ‘naturally occurring.’ But we are also interested in the work involved in ‘making’ loopholes: how they are identified and materially and discursively sustained. How do actors facilitate easy passage through loopholes without drawing attention? Does the use (and abuse) of loopholes prompt a rethinking of the rules or turning a blind eye? How to think about the moral ordering that comes with naming something a ‘loophole,’ implying the idea of either unjust systems or practices which are technically legal but against the spirit of the law? Who gets to define what counts as loopholes or the ‘spirit of the law,’ and who has the literacy and skills to spot a loophole in the first place? What can we learn about the practical politics of loopholes across a range of empirical sites and applications?

We invite empirically grounded papers pertaining to the phenomenon of loopholes. Although many current studies may concern bureaucracy and AI, we encourage wider understandings of loopholes within science, migration, sociology of law, sports, politics, cyber security, and formal, logical systems more generally.

Propose paper