Chapter 7 Who connects the dots?

This book responds to a gap in the literature in International Relations (IR) by integrating technology more systematically into analyses of global politics.Technology facilitates, accelerates, automates, and exercises capabilities that are greater than human abilities. And yet, within IR, the role of technology often remains under-studied. Building on insights from science and technology studies (STS), assemblage theory and new materialism, this volume asks how international politics are made possible, knowable, and durable by and through technology. The contributors provide empirically rich and pertinent accounts of a variety of technologies relevant to the discipline, including drones, algorithms, satellite imagery, border management databases, and blockchains. Problematizing various technologically mediated issues, such as secrecy, violence, and questions of how authority and evidence become constituted in international contexts, this book will be of interest to scholars in IR, in particular those who work in the subfields of (critical) security studies, International Political Economy, and Global Governance

“Now you see me – now you don’t!” – Practices and purposes of hacking online surveillance

This paper describes how hacking can be the act of redefining what is seen and not seen in the context of online surveillance. Based on a qualitative interview study with 22 hackers, it discusses the many practices and purposes of ‘hacking online surveillance’, with a specific focus on the techniques of disappearing from view while continuing to be online. Not only do these techniques vary in style and the expertise involved, but they all fulfill multiple functions. They are more than just a coded statement against the uneven powers of surveillance, they are tactics of the everyday life, moments of analytical creativity and reflection, instances of pleasure and play, affective encounters, identity work and forms of communication. The paper dedicates space to these sometimes overlapping and sometimes differing conceptualizations of ‘hacking online surveillance’ by using methodologies that consciously seek out the nonlinear and the multiple

Data criticality

The data moment, we argue, is not a single event, but a multiplicity of encounters that reveal what we call ‘data criticality’. Data criticality draws our attention to those moments of deciding whether and how data will exist, thus rendering data critically relevant to a societal context and imbuing data with ‘liveliness’ and agency. These encounters, we argue, also require our critical engagement. First, we develop and theorize our argument about data criticality. Second, by using predictive policing as an example, we present six moments of data criticality. A description of how data is imagined, generated, stored, selected, processed, and reused invites our reflections about data criticality within a broader range of data practices

Norge etter 22. juli

"At the time of this book’s publication, almost seven years have passed since the dramatic and brutal terror attacks at Norway’s Government Headquarters in Oslo and the island of Utøya on 22 July 2011. How have we coped during this time? Which values have been important? Have we managed to protect the ideals of democracy, openness and humanity? And not least: Who is this ""we"" that we are referring to? This scholarly anthology includes articles from researchers associated with the project NECORE (Negotiating Values: Collective Identities and Resilience after 22 July) and other researchers whose work is closely associated with the project. They give us insights, opinions and sharp perspectives on not just 22 July, but also about Norway today, about values, identities and resilience in Norwegian society in the wake of the terror attacks. An important backdrop for the book and the project is the assertion that, as the events themselves recede into the past, it is even more important to focus on what the terror events have led to and how we can learn from them. In a world where terrorism has become an all too common part of political reality, it is crucial that we understand how we ought to think about terror, and how we as a society encounter it.

DNA as in-formation

Traces are fundamental vectors of information. This is the first of seven forensic principles formulated by the 2022 Sydney declaration. To better understand the trace as information, this article proposes the notion of in-formation. DNA is matter in becoming. DNA changes as it travels across forensic sites and domains. New formations occur as humans, technologies and DNA interact. Understanding DNA as in-formation is of particular relevance vis-à-vis the increase of algorithmic technologies in the forensic sciences and the rendering of DNA into (big) data. The concept can help identifying, acknowledging and communicating those moments of techno-scientific interaction that require discretion and methodical decisions. It can assist in tracing what form DNA will take and what consequences this may have

Hacking in Digital Environments

Hackers tend to be portrayed as criminals or activists. In current digital media landscapes, however, hacking inhabits many places. This chapter’s aim is to complicate mainstream notions of hacking and acknowledge its diverse and distributed practices, intentions and instances. Instead of building on the clean model of binaries and “hats,” it offers an understanding of hacking that acknowledges how one hack can involve a variety of ethical, political, social, personal and affective dimensions. It supports an analytic approach of multiplicity, where hacking dataveillance can be understood as anything from pleasureful pragmatism to crafty critique. After briefly mapping the current standpoints and literatures on hacking in digital environments the chapter exemplifies this approach with a case study on hacking dataveillance. The case study grants insight into a field that is relatively new to media geography. Its empirical material illustrates and substantiates the argument about hacking as a multifaceted media practice. Geographically, the chapter’s insights are based on studies with hackers from Germany, Austria and Switzerland

Vocations, visions and vitalities of data analysis

Vocations and visions are vital to data analyses: without them, there is neither data, nor analysis. Visions are the solutions that technology designers and data analysts strive towards, and vocations are those callings that data follows spontaneously in the course of the analytic process. In data analyses, vocations and visions can take mathematical, semiotic or other social forms. Due to the integration of data analyses with digital technologies, however, vocations and visions are increasingly hard to grasp. Contributions to this issue identify the vocations and visions of data analyses as we find them in thermal cameras, in wearables for aid and medical treatment, in financial platforms, search engines, software and algorithms. They also trace how vocations and visions become productive of social and biological life and are therefore not only vitally important to data analysis, but also vital because they co-produce and re-ontologize life. They shape commercial, intellectual and social spheres, as well as the body, biology and bare life. Data analyses interact with human lives as data and analytic tools become lively, too. When applied to human beings and other organic life forms, to analytic tools, to digital data and to their relationship of becoming with each other, a methodology of life cycles captures these dynamics. If we acknowledge the vocations, visions and vitalities involved, analyses of data analysis must be conducted to help us understand, relate to and navigate these strange and familiar agencies

This Is a Secret. Learning From Children’s Engagement With Surveillance and Secrecy.

This article establishes the relevance of surveillance and secrecy as methodological tools, and it substantiates the argument that surveillance and secrecy are not oppositional in character, but overlap. It does so by drawing attention to obvious, but scholarly neglected performers of secrecy and surveillance: children. It discusses what it means to “work with” surveillance and secrecy as it develops their relevance in case studies involving children. As a contribution to cultural studies, the article shows how surveillance and secrecy “get to work” by tracing their constitutive character and by providing new angles for understanding points of contact between the two

Kriminalitetskontroll eller sikkerhetspolitikk?

Kriminalitetskontroll og sikkerhetspolitikk glir stadig mer over i hverandre, både når det gjelder retorikk og arbeidsmetoder. For å forstå hvorfor fenomener som tidligere kunne bli behandlet som nasjonale politisaker og kriminalitet i dag blir definert som sikkerhetsproblemer, kan det være nyttig å ta i bruk perspektiver utviklet innenfor kritiske sikkerhetsstudier. I denne artikkelen vil jeg se nærmere på tre slike perspektiver: det narrative, som omhandler sikkerhet og språk; det praktiske, som omhandler sikkerhet og handlinger; og det materielle, som omhandler sikkerhet og ting