[Air-L] NGM 2024 CfP: Digital sovereignty and the (welfare) state – from smart cities to eHealth and beyond

[Desirée Enlund]

Call for papers 10th Nordic Geographers Meeting, Copenhagen, Denmark. June 24-27, 2024.


Session: Digital sovereignty and the (welfare) state – from smart cities to eHealth and beyond

Session organizers: Desirée Enlund (Linköping University) and Ramon Ribera Fumaz (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya)

The concept of sovereignty originates from the idea of the sovereign, usually the king, and is closely connected to ideas of territory. In the recent surge of discussions around digital sovereignty, not the physical territory and its subjects, but the digital subjects and their connection to certain territories or possible mobility across territories and the risks associated with it, along with the geopolitical risks and competitions to keep the digital subjects and their concomitant data are pervasive. This can be seen in shifting EU policies towards autonomy and sovereignty (Schmitz & Seidl, 2022) and the fostering of EU single markets for technologies such as AI and eHealth (Krarup & Horst, 2023, Petročnik, 2022). However, another strand of research has tried to rethink digital sovereignty from below (e.g. Lynch, 2020). This becomes particularly pertinent in the context of the rise of the “data welfare state” (Andreassen, Kaun, & Nikunen, 2021) where the populations in countries “become a ‘brand’ that can be marketed” (Tupasela, 2017, in Tupasela, Snell, & Tarkkala, 2020). While there has been research on digital disconnection and digital resignation (Fast, 2021; Lomborg & Ytre-Arne, 2021), Bagger, Einarsson, Andelsman Alvarez, Klausen, and Lomborg (2023) point out the impossibility of disconnecting or resigning from the (welfare) state. So how to (re)think digital sovereignty in relation to the (welfare) state, when the state is not only “a producer, a provider and a consumer of data” (Tupasela et al., 2020, p. 2), but also a regulator and nurtures hope of benefitting from that same data. What are its geographies and the consequences, as both the generation, production and management of data and the welfare competencies occur at different scales from the local and regional to the national in different countries? This panel session takes stock of recent discussions around digital sovereignty to explore the power dynamics between the citizens and the (welfare) states and how to (re-)imagine digital sovereignty not of the state but from below.

We welcome abstracts dealing with, but not limited to questions such as:

  *   When the (welfare) state is increasingly datafied (on market conditions) – how will it assure its citizens digital sovereignty?
  *   How can we imagine and develop weak and strong digital sovereignty? (cp. Reviglio & Agosti, 2020)
  *   How can sovereignty for our digital personas in and across space be rethought?
  *   How are AI and algorithmic-driven welfare provision and care-based systems undermined?
  *   What forms of contestation and appropriation of digital data-driven provision are possible?
  *   How can we decenter AI and algorithmic welfare systems? How do we prefigure new forms of digital sovereignty from below?
Please send your paper title and abstract (up to 250 words) to desiree.enlund at liu.se<mailto:desiree.enlund at liu.se> and rriberaf at uoc.edu<mailto:rriberaf at uoc.edu>  by March 20th at the latest. Please also make sure to submit your abstract and register for the conference before April 15th.  Registration opens at February 1st, 2024: https://ngm2024.com<https://ngm2024.com/>


Kind regards
Desirée Enlund
Assistant professor in Human Geography
Visiting researcher, Department of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo
[Linköping University]
Department of Thematic Studies
Tema Genus
s-581 83 Linköping
Phone: +46 (0)13-28 89 97
Visiting address: Temahuset, Campus Valla
Please visit us at liu.se<https://liu.se/>

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New publications:
Enlund, D., K. Harrison, R. Ringdahl, A. Börütecene, J. Löwgren & V. Angelakis (2022) The role of sensors in the production of smart city spaces, Big Data & Society, 9(2).
Gotfredsen, A., D. Enlund, I. Goicolea & E. Landstedt (2022). Precarious leisure in teenage wasteland - discourses on responsibilities and youth place making in rural Northern Sweden. Journal of Youth Studies, 25(10): 1350-1366.
Enlund, D. (2022). Struggles around public healthcare restructuring and rural futures. Gender, Place and Culture, 29(7): 1039-1043.
Enlund, D. (2022) Ådalen igen: Från hungerstrejk till sjukvårdsockupation, Arbetarhistoria, no. 181-182, pp. 66-75.