With the usual apologies for cross-posting we hope this event may be of interest.
Digital Frontiers: Exploring the digital-analogue interface
A free one-day event at Kingston University, UK
November 2nd 2017 10am-4pm
**A few places remaining**
This one day event aims to bring together those interested in or currently conducting empirical research on the ways in which the digital spaces such as social media, connectivity-enabled smartphone applications, and internet-based platforms are being used to sustain or transform individuals’ subjectivities and material circumstances. The interface of the analogue and the digital is receiving keen interest through such concepts as the collaborative, sharing and gig economies, but we hope to bring together those who are interested in exploring new avenues for theorising novelty and transformation, sustenance and reproduction in the ways that organising occurs. In this endeavour, we conceptualise the development of online spaces as the production of a contested territory; a frontier of opportunity for the reinvention of the world. A territory that is nonetheless made fraught in its encounter with the power relations of the world that already exist, and the limitations of its construction. The digital represents, for us, a territory to which individuals and groups seek meaning, value, and community for not only acceptance of their selves and ideas but for economic prosperity and survival. In so seeking, we see digital landowners emerge, insistence on changing rentier requirements, and a need for the constant (re)production of value.
The event will be structured around three symposia on the themes of: Digital Platforms, Novelty, and Knowledge. Pairs of discussants will speak on their given topic as a provocation to discussion with the participants of the event. We are happy to welcome as discussants - Peter Bloom (The Open University), Angela Martinez-Dy (Loughborough University London), Laura Mitchell (Keele University), Jamie Woodcock (London School of Economics), Elaine Swan (University of Sussex) and Harley Bergroth (University of Turku). There will also be further opportunities for informal discussion and networking. Lunch and refreshments will be provided and the event should last between 10:00 and 16:00.
We call for those interested in engaging with this notion of the digital frontier and offer a space in which to have conversations about how this, and other ways of conceptualising the interface of the digital and analogue, might develop. This workshop will foster interests in areas such as innovation, materiality and the digital, new areas of labour regulation, the reproduction of power relations and the development of new career pathways. Although big data has been an area of much excitement in the arena of social research, recent reflections in the media have highlighted the limitations of this type of analysis, namely, the correlation of activities and trends, suggesting instead a turn towards richer forms of analysis that theorise motivations or forces. We invite to this workshop those who are collecting empirical data through methods such as digital ethnography, interviews with individuals about theirdigitally mediated activities or qualitative textual and content analysis on activities and lifestyles that traverse the digital and analog spheres; or who can offer theoretical tools to develop new understandings of such data. We are particularly keen to enable and to encourage interdisciplinary participation and collaborations.
The event has two goals: a) to foster connections between scholars and ideas with a view to developing collaborations for writing or research projects. It will be structured around a set of ‘dialogues’ where pairs of invited speakers will present and provoke around a given theme, and workshop activities where we’ll have a chance to meet and discuss our interests with the other attendees; b) to work towards an output in the form of a special issue or edited book - for which we have received interest from publishers - through highlighting common themes in our research.
The event will be hosted at Kingston Business School, Kingston-Upon-Thames, London, UK. The event will be free to attend and lunch provided, but please do register at this Eventbrite link:https://digitalfrontiersnov17.eventbrite.co.uk
