RD: This Digital Innovation and Management course uses ethnographic studies and theoretical frameworks from Anthropology, STS and Organisational studies to examine the new responsibilities, obligations and of state actors as they implement IT systems. It asks how public bodies use and store data, questions the line between public and private companies, and explores political and ethical questions of infrastructure and responsibility during public digitisation initiatives. We work through 5 themes. First, we examine different ways the State can be present in everyday life, and how this varies according to country. Next, we move on to examine some of the motivations driving digitalization projects, and consider the responsibilities of those implementing such schemes. We then proceed through an examination of technologies of digitalization and a series of global comparisons. To see this clearly from where we are –in Denmark – we use comparative material from other countries, where digitalization projects play out differently. The course concludes with a regional focus on the Scandinavian State. The Digital State is primarily based on seminar discussions and workshop exercises. You will therefore be expected to do the class reading before class, using worksheets, and be prepared to participate in active discussion and debate, workshops, exercises and demonstrations.
Rachel Douglas-Jones, 15 June 2021, "The Digital State Syllabus Spring 21 - Douglas-Jones", contributed by Emily York, STS Infrastructures, Platform for Experimental Collaborative Ethnography, last modified 15 June 2021, accessed 31 August 2024. https://stsinfrastructures.org/content/digital-state-syllabus-spring-21-douglas-jones
Critical Commentary
RD: This Digital Innovation and Management course uses ethnographic studies and theoretical frameworks from Anthropology, STS and Organisational studies to examine the new responsibilities, obligations and of state actors as they implement IT systems. It asks how public bodies use and store data, questions the line between public and private companies, and explores political and ethical
questions of infrastructure and responsibility during public digitisation initiatives.
We work through 5 themes. First, we examine different ways the State can be present in everyday life, and how this varies according to country. Next, we move on to examine some of the motivations driving digitalization projects, and consider the responsibilities of those implementing such schemes.
We then proceed through an examination of technologies of digitalization and a series of global comparisons. To see this clearly from where we are –in Denmark – we use comparative material from other countries, where digitalization projects play out differently. The course concludes with a regional focus on the Scandinavian State.
The Digital State is primarily based on seminar discussions and workshop exercises. You will therefore be expected to do the class reading before class, using worksheets, and be prepared to participate in active discussion and debate, workshops, exercises and demonstrations.