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IV ISA Forum of Sociology Challenges of the 21st Century: Democracy, Environment, Inequalities, Intersectionality Porto Alegre, Brazil July 14-18, 2020 Some of you may be interested in submitting an abstract for my accepted Panel, below. The panel is part of Thematic Group TG07 ‘The Senses and Society’. Although it seems far in the future, deadlines for abstract submission are soon: September 30, 2019: The sense of data and the data of sense: bodies, technologies, spaces Since Andrejevic and Burdon’s 2015 paper on the ‘sensor society’, with its warning of the “growing array of networked digital devices” that “passively collect enormous amounts of data” (2015:19), we are becoming accustomed to a tide of revelations concerning the darker side of digital surveillance and the ‘Quantified Self’ movement. News coverage focuses on personal data, with a seemingly endless series of breaches or stories of manipulation by brokers and unknown foreign actors (e.g. Cambridge Analytica). But the underlying and persistent phenomenon of what Shoshanna Zuboff (2018) has termed ‘surveillance capitalism’ remains unchallenged. The technical infrastructure that facilitates the monitoring of bodies encompasses the spaces of work, leisure, and the home, and includes embedded sensors, geolocation tracking, and face recognition technologies. In parallel with so-called ‘smart cities’, with their allure of convenience and control for citizens, are stealthier and potentially coercive forms of surveillance such as infra-red monitoring of consumer behaviors in stores and malls, and the tracking of workers’ bodily movements within offices, factories, warehouses, and distribution centers. Recently, for example, Amazon patented two technologies: first, a ‘haptic wristband’ designed not only to track workers in distribution and warehousing facilities, but also to nudge them towards the right aisles and shelves; and second, a safety belt to alert robotic systems to the presence of humans in the mixed workspace. What is the future of work and play as we increasingly reside within larger ecologies of sensors, and robotic and autonomous systems? What historical forces and developments have allowed these infrastructures to flourish? The panel invites theoretically-informed papers, and welcome those that engage either conceptually or empirically with the intersection of technologies, senses, and spaces. Areas might include: sensor societies; surveillance capitalism; bodies and interfaces; human-robot interactions; ‘aesthetic’ encounters; the ‘Quantized Self’ (QS) movement, and availability of biometric data collection in everyday life (e.g. FitBit, Nike+, Strava, Apple Health). — If you’re interested in submitting or have questions, email me ([log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>). Abstracts (300 words max) must be submitted through the conference website<https://isaconf.confex.com/isaconf/forum2020/cfp.cgi> by September 30, 2019 24:00 GMT Best wishes, Mark Dr. Mark Paterson Assistant Professor Department of Sociology University of Pittsburgh research | sensory-motor.com<http://sensory-motor.com/> faculty | profile<http://www.sociology.pitt.edu/person/mark-wd-paterson-phd> recent paper | ‘On pain as a distinct sensation’, Body & Society 2019 [video<https://www.theoryculturesociety.org/video-mark-paterson-on-pain-as-a-distinct-sensation-mapping-intensities-affects-and-difference-in-interior-states/>] recent book | Consumption & Everyday Life, 2nd Ed. (Routledge, 2017) link<https://www.routledge.com/Consumption-and-Everyday-Life-2nd-edition/Paterson/p/book/9781138959323> ######################################################################## To unsubscribe from the EUROPEAN-SOCIOLOGIST list, click the following link: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=EUROPEAN-SOCIOLOGIST&A=1