[Air-L] This Friday: Ethnographies of the Datafied State

[Holly Avella]

Please join the Rutgers Digital Ethnography Working Group (DEWG) for our
upcoming online event, Ethnographies of the Datafied State, with
panelists Burcu Baykurt (UMass Amhearst) and Chuncheng Liu (Microsoft
Research).



Friday, April 5
1:00-2:30pm EDT
Online; Register Here:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/867694155577?aff=oddtdtcreator


Ethnographies of the Datafied State


Governments today are actively developing and integrating digital and
computational systems, transitioning into what sociologists Jenna Burrell
and Ranjit Singh call the “Datafied State.” Consequently, there is
increased scholarly interest in studying the growing implications of
algorithms, automation, and surveillance across civic life. This panel
explores the use of ethnographic methods in examining the complex
relationship between computation and statecraft. How does ethnography
become useful for investigating the logic and labor behind the building and
maintenance of these technologies? What unique challenges exist? Our
panelists, Burcu Baykurt and Chuncheng Liu, will explore these themes
through cases of smart city developments in the US and social credit
systems in China.



Burcu Baykurt is an assistant professor of media studies at the University
of Massachusetts Amherst. Her research examines how digital infrastructures
reshape and perpetuate durable inequalities. She is currently working on a
book, Smart as a City, based on her fieldwork in an aspiring smart city in
the United States.

Chuncheng Liu is a postdoctoral researcher at Microsoft Research New
England and an incoming Assistant Professor at Northeastern University. His
research focuses on the sociotechnical production of data and
classifications in authoritarian states. He is currently working an
ethnography of a social credit system, a data-driven governance
infrastructure in China.


Rutgers Digital Ethnography Working Group:
https://rutgersdigitalethnography.org