Individualising Solidarities (original) (raw)
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Digitalised Welfare: Systems For Both Seeing and Working With Mess
12th ACM Conference on Web Science Companion, 2020
Digital welfare does not operate in a vacuum, but rather transforms non-digital and unofficial spaces of welfare provision. The digitalisation of welfare occludes the complex reality of poverty and erects digital barriers to accessing welfare. Digitalised welfare has not abolished face-to-face support, but has relocated it to unofficial sites of welfare. The apparent efficiency and simplicity of the state's digital welfare apparatus, therefore, is produced not by reducing the 'messiness' of welfare, but by rendering it invisible within the digital framework. In this paper we compare two approaches to welfare digitalisation and identify three considerations for welfare service design that might reduce the digital barriers, rebuild a sense of self-efficacy and increase service accessibility and inclusion. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → User studies.
Digital by default? A qualitative study of exclusion in digitalised welfare
Social Policy & Administration, 2018
Digitalisation reforms have become increasingly pervasive across European welfare agencies and public sector institutions. As welfare provision becomes premised on the use of digital technologies, often in the form of 'self-service' solutions, new demands are imposed on citizens, including already disadvantaged groups. While existing research has showcased how digitalisation often reproduces existing lines of stratification, little to no work has been conducted on such processes in the context of welfare provision and public administration. Through a study of citizen service centres in Denmark, based on ethnographic observations and qualitative interviews, this article analyses the new exclusionary mechanisms that emerge at the frontline of the digital agenda. The article argues that digitalised welfare agencies simultaneously sustain existing lines of social stratification and enhance these by producing new forms of digital exclusion. Taken together, the article contributes with new knowledge on the impact of digitalisation policies and their exclusionary consequences for disadvantaged citizens.
2024
All rights reserved. Copies of text contained herein may only be made by institutions that have an agreement with COPY-DAN and then only within the limits of that agreement. The only exception to this rule is short excerpts used for the purpose of book reviews. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many people deserve my deepest gratitude for the help, guidance and support I have received along the journey towards the completion of this PhD dissertation. However, the dream of someday pursuing a PhD started long before. This PhD thesis would not have been without the teachings of Margaretha Järvinen and my undergraduate thesis supervisor Lars Fynbo when I was studying sociology at the University of Copenhagen. You have inspired me, believed in my abilities and ideas and set me on the path towards the dream of someday writing a PhD dissertation. For this, I am very grateful. First of all, I want to thank my supervisors, Nanna Mik-Meyer and Christoph Houman Ellersgaard, for their support and encouragement. Thank you, Nanna, for your endless help and advice, for teaching me the craft of research and how to be a good researcher. Time is a scarce resource in academia, but you always had time for me, for which I am very grateful. You have challenged me more than I have ever been challenged before and I have learned so much from you. Thank you for devoting so much time to reading my drafts again and again and again and providing detailed feedback each time. Thank you for teaching me how to write academically, review and revise a paper, and the various tricks and tips of the craft and what it means to be a researcher. Thank you for helping me structure my thoughts and ideas and convert them into fully-fledged academic articles. All I learned from you will stay with me in my future work. Thank you for believing in me back in the spring of 2020 and giving me the opportunity to pursue a PhD under your capable wings. To my secondary supervisor, Christoph, I am grateful for your support, feedback and attention, especially during the writing process of the overall framework. Thank you for guiding me in this process which was confusing and challenging in the beginning but ended up being enjoyable and even fun to write. In the fall of 2022, I had the great pleasure of visiting Susie Scott at the University of Sussex, England. Thank you, Susie, for taking the time to listen to my project, my ideas and questions and for taking on the role of being my supervisor in the months that I visited. Thank you for offering guidance and extensive knowledge, sharing the passion for interactionist scholars and, not least, for teaching me more about the sociology of nothing. I learned a lot and I am very grateful for the opportunity to write and work with you. iv A special thank you is owed to the Nordic collaboration, which this thesis is part of (the project Citizens as Pilots of Smart Cities, financed by NordForsk). Thank you to the collaborating universities and the inspiring people who are part of this collaboration, with whom I had the pleasure of sharing and discussing my work during the last three years. Thank you to Tuomas
WORKLESS PEOPLE AND SURVEILLANT MASHUPS Social policy and data sharing in the UK
This paper examines the use of ICT driven surveillant assemblages in UK welfare policy by drawing on the results of empirical research conducted for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). The focus is on one aspect of the growing role of surveillance in social policy: data aggregation on populations characterized by sustained worklessness. The implementation and implications of this form of surveillance are examined. The paper explores surveillance systems that were extant in 2005/06 and those that were being designed. The paper argues that there is an ongoing need for critical evaluation of the underlying logic of data mashing on marginalized populations.
Revolution 4.0: Assessing Labour and Welfare
2018
As technological progress, automation, and digital platforms have entered the labour market and are expected to progressively change its dynamics, material and discursive neoliberal practices are directing technology towards the maintenance of the socio-economic status quo. This thesis aims at demonstrating that, albeit technology has the potential to contribute to the building of a post-neoliberal society, the neoliberal narrative has managed to appropriate critical arguments to legitimize exploitative practices aimed at avoiding the shift to an alternative order. The first chapter introduces the issue of automation and the main studies that have been led about the topic, together with an analysis concerning how the conception of a future without work has changed after the neoliberal turn in the late 1970s and 1980s. The second chapter addresses the notion of platform capitalism, notably the practices through which digital platforms are utilized to foster underpaid and unpaid labour as well as surplus value extraction and the narrative utilized to justify those practices. After the analysis of the digital and gig economies, the chapter concludes with a brief outlook of a set of proposals for the future of the digital economy. The third and concluding chapter addresses future perspectives concerning welfare and economic policies, highlighting the risk of neoliberal appropriation of counter arguments and proposals, providing the Universal Basic Income (UBI) as an example.
Plat-Firming Welfare: Examining Digital Transformation in Local Care Services
University of Westminster Press eBooks, 2022
Books and journals, open access & print www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk Welcome to the latest catalogue of the University of Westminster Press, an academic open access publisher since 2015. Our logo, an open laptop and an open book forming a W, was intended as a succinct comment and a visual representation of our mission. For UWP the most signficant development in the last year has been the addition of three new journal titles: the first, Anthropocenes-Human, Inhuman, Posthuman (p.34) an interdisciplinary title of great range tackling some of the big questions of our age including climate change, species extinction and latterly Covid-19. Likewise we are delighted to welcome the Journal of Deliberative Democracy (p.32). As populism surges across the world, the need for democratic legitimacy and real engagement continues to grow. JDD's August 2020 relaunch with UWP highlights key debates in participative democracy and public deliberation and considers how new insights might assist politics grapple with mounting challenges. We also look forward, later in the year to the first issue of Active Travel Studies (p.31). Healthier and more environmentally conscious transport is the focus of the journal's parent research body, the Active Travel Academy at the University of Westminster. Also during this period two of our existing journals Silk Road (p.36) and Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture (p.38) are now presented in a new research environment that of ScienceOpen. We welcome ScienceOpen and other new channels assisting readers in discovering our publications. UWP book titles remain available via JSTOR (www.jstor.org) and OAPEN (www.oapen.org), as MARC-21 records for libraries are also now available to download from our home page. Book trade orders and customers can also be set up via an account with Ingrams at www.ingramcontent.com/publishers/lp/introducingipage. This 2020 catalogue features three forthcoming books in the Critical Digital and Social Media Studies series (pp.4-17)-two focusing on the 'Commons'-in Autumn on top of a total of 30 published book titles, 7 CAMRI Policy Briefs (pp.21-23] and the distributed titles in the the History of the 'University of Westminster' series. One undoubted highlight in 2020 will be Can Music Make You Sick? (p. 18) Sadly the answer to this question appears to be 'yes' for musicians, whose mental health is facing unprecedented challenges in the wake of the gig economy, streaming and currently a cessation of the festival season and most live events. Spreadheading a new wave of publications challenging some of the benign assumptions of previous creative industries literature, this title is sure to contribute to an urgent debate in the field. So we hope there's plenty to engage you in the following pages!.
Theorising Digital Dispossession: An Enquiry into the Datafication of Accumulation by Dispossession
tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique. Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society, 2024
In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, the question of work and labour was being deeply pondered upon. The demarcations that emerged out of this juncture led to a bifurcation of labour into 'essential workers', who are pushed into precarity from the threat of disease and contractual uncertainty in employment, and those who 'work from home'. While geo-spatial segregation of these distinctions is contingent upon the specific relation of the nature of work with datafication, we are impelled to ponder upon the role that the accumulation of surplus value plays in this process. More specifically we must ask, what role does digital labour play in the datafication and datafied reorganization of work and workplaces? The inadequateness of data colonialism as a theoretical tool that accounts for the historical-materialist and dialectical roots of extraction and accumulation of user data requires a retheorization of the process. In this paper, I shall examine the ontological inadequacies of the metaphors of colonialism, and its extractivist logic, being transposed and mapped onto the studies of datafication. Following this I shall explore 'digital dispossession' as a convergence of Digital Capitalism and the neoliberal reorganization of digitized social labour, alongside its necropolitical implications. Drawing upon David Harvey's theorization of 'Accumulation by Dispossession', I argue for a classical Marxist interpretation of datafication as a new reorganization of capitalist accumulation that acts and appropriates surplus generated by prosumers through the unpaid and discursive digital labour performed on digital platforms.
Welfare 2.0: future scenarios of social protection systems in the digital age
Policy Design and Practice
Europe faces today unprecedented challenges including increased life expectancy, changes in family structures, new forms of consumption and production, sedentary lives, with a growth in chronic diseases. These trends, coupled with an increasingly interconnected economic space disrupted by the spread of digital technologies, raises questions about the role and functioning of the Welfare State. After introducing the need for envisaging the future of welfare, the paper presents the approach followed and the resulting scenarios proposed. Four scenarios are created, resulting from identifying two key uncertainties: low or high levels of sustainability, and low or high levels of engagement. The four scenarios of the future of welfare are then discussed showing different implications for how welfare is understood, financed, organized and the roles of different actors. Our discussion aims at opening up the debate on where the evolutionary paths of welfare systems could lead European societies in light of the impact of the digital transformation, and the required rethinking of their functioning and role. This would provide support in identifying innovative trajectories outlining possible further research directions, and implications for European policies with an impact at national, regional and local level.