DASTS Conference at ITU 24-25 May 2018

DASTS Biennial Conference

Theme: Engaging ‘the Data Moment’

May 24^th/25^th 2018 at the IT University of Copenhagen

Our contemporary moment is increasingly characterized by and through data. Imaginaries run wild; data is the new oil, the new currency, our new vehicle of growth, even. From quantified-self movements, to newly emerging forms of economics (such as bit coin and platform capitalism), to sensing-based environments (the internet of things), to the Janus-faced potentials of data analytics, data continues to proliferate, and in the process, transform people, organisations and societies.

Given the speculative and hype infused conjuncture we find ourselves in, this conference encourages an engagement with the making and unmaking, potentials and pitfalls, of data, in all its various nomenclatures, guises and manifestations – data work, data practices, data imaginaries, models and infrastructures, and so forth. The so-called ‘data moment’ poses compelling empirical, theoretical and ethical challenges and is an opportunity to take stock of how STS might engage, and think with, data. One move is to rethink data through STS’s long history of engagement with, for example, classification and quantification, as well as the making of data in the sciences and beyond. At the same time, STS’s more recent foray into the arenas of Big-data, algorithms, machine-learning, as well as a host of state and governance issues relating to data citizenship, rights, and privacy, opens up fertile grounds for new forms of analysis, critique and intervention. Reflexively, how might we think about the making of research ‘data’ in STS vis-à-vis the various data producing, data defining activities studied by STS-scholars?

The theme is inspirational only, and we welcome papers which address other issues, forms of analysis and concerns related to STS and neighbouring academic fields. We also hold open a space for alternatives to paper presentation sessions, so please feel free to submit abstracts that reflect this or contact us about your idea.

Important Information

• Abstracts should be submitted to jmag@itu.dk no later than February 1st
• Notification of acceptance by March 1st
• Abstracts should be no longer than 300 words and contain the name(s) and institutional. affiliation(s) of the author(s). They should also include a selection of 1-5 keywords.
• Abstracts can be submitted in either English or Danish.
• Registration details will be posted on DASTS.dk closer to the conference date.

Keynote speakers

Amade M’charek is Professor Anthropology of Science at the department of Anthropology of the University of Amsterdam. Her research interests are in forensics, forensic anthropology and race. She is the PI of the project Dutchness in Genes and Genealogy, a project examining how Dutchness is enacted in collaborations between population geneticists, archaeologists and genealogists. Amade is also the PI of the project Sexuality & Diversity in the Making. She is the founding chair of the European Network for the Social Studies of Forensics (EUnetSSF) and the convenor of the seminar series  Ir/relevance of Race in Science and Society. Her most recent research is on face making and race making in forensic identification, for which she received a five-year ERC consolidator grant in December 2013.

Alberto Corsín Jiménez is Associate Professor at the Spanish National Research Council, and an anthropologist of cities and science. With an interest in the history and ethnography of science and experimentation he has been drawn to the study of ‘interfaces’, understood as technical and experimental designs between nature and culture. For the past ten years he has been studying the work of “free culture” urban activism and is interested in how such expressions of “free urbanism” compare with other accounts of informality in the city (auto-construction, makeshift urbanism, slum urbanism, etc.), as well as in the socio-technical assemblages through which such free and open-source prototype projects problematize anew forms of urban complexity.

ITU Organizing Committee

James Maguire

Bastian Jørgensen

Christopher Gad