The end of the year is for taking stock of achievements, taking in learnings, and setting out goals for the future. A lot has happened at the Center for Digital Welfare (CDW) this year, in fact much more than what is possible to list in a single newsletter. Some events to highlight are the founding of the working group Sustainable Digitalization, the many close collaborators who have joined us through memberships, and not least the release of 31 excellent research publications by Center researchers, shedding light on diverse aspects of digital welfare. A big warm thank you to everyone involved for contributing with great efforts this year. We look forward to continuing the work for interdisciplinary research and cross-sector collaboration on Digital Welfare in the new year.

The fall period has not been bereft of activities deserving a mention. The Agile State working group went on expedition to the Danish Business Authority who gave a generous account of their journey of digital transformation, from making it possible to register an enterprise online to providing expertise on how to digitize most Danish public agencies. The working groups Sustainable Digitalization and Digital Democratic Spaces, on the other hand, embarked on an expedition to Lærkesletten at Amager Fælled, a site of much contention and, an excellent case for thinking about intersections between natural space, digital debate, democratic process, and ultimately, local election results.

November marked the kick-off of our public Distinguished Speakers Series - Lectures on Digital Welfare, where influential international researchers visit the ITU to present research on technology and their impact on welfare. In the first edition, we were joined by Prof. Jeannette Pols from University of Amsterdam speaking on technologies absorbed in the Dutch health care sector, as well as the multiple varieties in notions of ‘good technology’. Don’t miss the chance to catch the next (online) event in the series on the 9th of December with Meredith Broussard from New York University, most known for her book Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World and the Netflix documentary Coded Bias.

CDW wishes you a peaceful Christmas and look forward to seeing you again in 2022.

Greetings from,
 
Laura Juncker
Strategic Project Manager

PhD Fellow Anne-Sofie Lautrup participated in a panel on carbon and climate at 4S Annual Meeting (Society for Social Studies of Science, Toronto) | PhD Fellow Barbara Nino Carreras appointed member of Bevica Fonden’s Universal Design PhD research network | Brit Ross Winthereik presented her talk homely digital space at the Royal Danish Academy | Caroline Anna Salling presented her work at the Anthropology of Technology Conference | Center for Digital Welfare is giving a talk at Digital Tech Summit called Beyond the Standard User – Paving the Way for Socially Inclusive Technologies | The Center gathered for the yearly advisory board meeting on the 9th of November | On the 14th of December the public is invited for an open seminar on Big Data and the Police: Between Utopia and Dystopia by the CDW research project CUPP | Cæcilie Sloth Laursen and Sisse Finken presented two papers published in the conference proceedings of InfraHealth Conference in Norway the 23rd-24th of September | Six new episodes of the CDW podcast Klub Digital Velfærd are out now

On the 4th of October, CDW co-organized a symposium at Kunsten Museum of Modern Art Aalborg in collaboration with Aalborg University and Copenhagen Business School. The event titled ‘Digital Seamlessness and the Work behind it’ invited scholars to present research on the seemingly ‘invisible work’ that goes into creating seamless user experiences in the everyday life that has rapidly moved online. In the line-up of presentations was Konstantinos Floros, PhD fellow at CDW, who is studying digital house cleaning platforms in Denmark.

Compared to other labor platforms, such as Amazon MTurk and Uber, house cleaning platforms have received much less scholarly attention. Floros investigates how house cleaning platforms, apps, algorithms, and ratings, mediate flexible and potentially precarious employment relations in the Danish context. Moreover, his project positions the evolution of house cleaning platform work within Danish policy-making and digital economy imaginaries. This creates a backdrop for studying how the digitalized welfare state, through regulation, can produce or impede new precarities in employment.

In addition, Floros was recently part of founding a new network called The Danish Research Network on Platform Work together with Katrine Duus Terkelsen (AU), Sne Scott Hansen (KU) and Kalle Kusk Gjetting (AU). The network is composed of researchers investigating a variety of issues relating to digital labor platforms in Denmark. They will be presenting their first paper in February, at the 9th Nordic Geographers Meeting in Finland.

In November we celebrated the publication of the book Data Practices Making up a European Citizen, edited by Evelyn Ruppert and Stephen Scheel. The book includes two chapters written by Associate Professor Baki Cakici, member of the Center’s Agile State working group.

What is Europe and who are Europeans? Data Practices approaches this contemporary political and theoretical question by treating it as a practical problem of counting. Only through myriad data practices can EU member states know their national populations, utilized by the EU to understand the population of Europe. But this volume approaches data practices not simply as reflecting populations but as performative as well. You can purchase the book or access it electronically here.

Cakici, B., & Ruppert, E. (2021). Data Subjects: Calibrating and Sieving. In: Ruppert, E. & Scheel, S. (eds) (2021). Data Practices: Making Up a European People. Goldsmiths Press.

Cakici, B., Grommé, F. & Takala., V. (2021). Statistician Subjects: Differentiating and Defending. In: Ruppert, E. & Scheel, S. (eds) (2021). Data Practices: Making Up a European People. Goldsmiths Press.

Dyreborg, J., Laursen, C. S., &.  Nielsen, M. L. (2021). Young Workers on Digital Labor Platforms: Uncovering the Double Autonomy Paradox. Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies.

Enslev, L., &  Finken, S. (2021). On data discipline, citizen care records, and rehabilitation work. 8th International Conference on Infrastructures in Healthcare.

Galis, V., Jørgensen, M. B., Sandberg, M. &   Rossi, L. (eds) (2021). Research Methodologies and Ethical Challenges in Digital Migration Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

Laursen, C. S. (2021). Video consultations during Covid-19: Repairing the lack of embodied encounters with patients in outpatient clinics. InfraHealth 2021: Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Infrastructures for Healthcare.

Maguire, J. (2021). Here, but mostly elsewhere. In: Hoder G. & Remin, J. (eds) (2021). Hyperscale: Cloud Materialities. Aleatorik.

Poderi, G. (2021). Carving out the when/where of commoning and the micro-politics of commoners’ everyday life. Ephemera: Theory & Politics in Organization.

Simonsen, T., & Vikkelsø, S. (2021). Organizational space as sites of contention: Unravelling relations of dis/order in a psychiatric hospital. Ephemera: Theory & Politics in Organization.

Dear readers, we are working on improving the accessibility of our newsletter. If you run into any issues while browsing our newsletter, or you have suggestions to make the newsletter more enjoyable, email our co-editor Laura Juncker at laju@itu.dk.

Konstantinos Floros | Laura Na Blankholm | Barbara Nino Carreras | Brit Ross Winthereik | Laura Juncker