Welcome to TiPs Lexicon.
As part of our research group’s ongoing conversation on the role and relevance of scholarly work in dynamically changing technological environments, we offer up a modest set of ideas to help readers think about, and navigate within, the complex technological and digital worlds we inhabit.
We are currently witness to a veritable explosion of interest in the digitalization and datafication of contemporary life. From private corporations, to the public sector, to academic and civic institutions, the desire––and accompanying anxiety––to digitalise and datafy our worlds knows few bounds. While TiPs primary mandate is to provide research and teaching excellence on a range of themes within the society-technology nexus, we oftentimes struggle to engage in ways that reach beyond more traditional modes of academic production. With this in mind, we wanted to develop a more open and generous writing form that would appeal to a broader audience (students, the media, the general public, as well as fellow scholars). At the same time, we wanted this form to be a conceptual and critical intervention into our current, and future, state of technological affairs. Our answer to these ambitions was the making of the TiP Lexicon.
While there are varying ways to think about the term Lexicon –– and many good examples of Lexicon writing –– we invite readers to regard the term as a glossary, or set of keywords, that tells us something about the worlds we collectively research. As we struggle to find a grammar of our time, the Lexicon can be seen as an aspirational method, one that hopes to provide a sense of grammatical resonance in a world of disconcertment.
Each of the Lexicon’s entries has been through a process of curation. An initial workshop generated ideas about how to approach our groups’ desire to find alternate forms of engagement, while a second workshop generated content in a collective writing environment. From here, internal reviews led to the eight entries before you. As you will see, the entries range from thematic concerns with privacy and digital responsibility, to algorithms, data centers, and climate change. Additionally, we have contributions that address more classic questions through the lens of technology, such as migration, and the state. And finally, we have a more analytical contribution that thinks through one of STS’s formative terms, network.
Within TiPs new online platform, the pathway to each individual Lexicon entry consists of an image chosen by each author that speaks to, in some shape or form, their piece.
Over time, our ambition is to add to these initial entries as we continue to develop TiPs platform and presence in the world. This, we hope, will come from both current and former academic staff members, as well as some of the renowned scholars that we have been fortunate enough to host over the last several years.
For now, enjoy!!
James Maguire and Brit Ross Winthereik
Lexicon Editors
The cogito ergo sum of a border would arguably be “I divide therefore I am”. Every other claim about what a border does can be disputed, found to be partial, inaccurate or out-dated, but there is no border that does not divide one thing from something else. Ever since borders first became a particular technology […]
It is not uncommon to imagine our data as residing in the cloud. Although this metaphor provides a seductive grasp on the complexity of a distributed internet, it obscures as much as it reveals. How data is organized and where it is located is rendered in graspable, naturalized terms, as if our digitalised traces roam […]
The privacy paradox is typically defined as the inconsistency between attitudes towards privacy and data disclosure behaviors. Although people often express concerns about their privacy, the same individuals are willing to reveal personal data for small rewards. This “attitude-behavior gap,” as some have described it, continues to confound technologists, politicians and researchers alike. If people […]
In his essay collection, The Periodic Table, Primo Levi narrates 100 plus years in the story of a single carbon atom. Starting its journey in limestone rock, this atom moves into organic human and non-human forms of life, and then into atmospheric gas traversing the globe, ending up as part of the structure that shapes […]
The concept of network is a widespread term in contemporary social theory as well as other fields. It is commonly invoked in public imaginaries of the contemporary ‘digital age’. As such it is used, sometimes interchangeably, in both colloquial and analytic ways. Dictionaries define the present day use of the term as referring to complex […]
We define digital responsibility as ‘something more’ than the current attempts at protecting personal data. In 2018, alongside the implementation of the EU General Data Protection Regulating (GDPR) the liberal-right wing government of Denmark convened a national “Data Ethics Council”, seeing the culmination of years of work of advocates for the term “Data Ethics” (Hasselbach […]
How can we trust new technologies? With increasing attention towards artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms, the question arises as to whether these new tools for decision-making can be trusted. Machine learning algorithms are often presented as systems that automatically learn based on data. As these algorithms ‘learn on their own’ it has proven difficult, […]
Some definitions of state, stated in no particular order: State is a material property, as in states of matter, and it is a polity, as evoked by matters of state. In both denoting the configuration of elements understood to be similar; atoms distal and proximal for natural sciences, subjects higher or lower in political hierarchies. […]