[Air-L] CfP: DATA, SECURITY, VALUES: VOCATIONS AND VISIONS OF DATA ANALYSIS

[Mareile Kaufmann]

** Call for Papers - Please circulate widely**

DATA, SECURITY, VALUES: VOCATIONS AND VISIONS OF DATA ANALYSIS 10.-11. December 2018 Peace Research Institute Oslo

Data analysis is normative. Coding, programming and algorithmically interpreting data is always informed by the concepts, ideas, values and affordances of the technologies and people that engage with data. Even if the word data means "given", information becomes socially and politically imbued as soon as it is selected and categorized to make it available for analysis. Such insights are no longer only subject of academic critique, but the normativity of data analysis has by now become integrated into public discourses. In fact, the value of data has created a new market for moral entrepreneurs, who re-frame data analysis as a tool for moral engineering and security politics.

At this conference we explore how values, ideas and concepts are not only necessarily embedded in data analysis, but also in what way they are productive and co-create society. Please join our discussion on the many vocations and visions of data analysis in the security domain: These can include overt media manipulation and disinformation, the active sensoring or removal of online contents, the workings of editing algorithms or retweet-robots, the promotion of state-sponsored narratives online, but also the normativity of approaches that seek to "uncover fake news", "fight attacks on the freedom of speech online" or "make the world a more secure place with online data". Together, we discuss the relationship between data analysis, ideas and values by looking at the workings of digital security technologies, data security policies or the security politics of data. 

The three confirmed keynote speakers are:

Miguel Sicart, Associate Professor at the Center for Computer Game Research at IT University Copenhagen, "Playing Data: Understanding the Ludic in the Information Age"

Katja de Vries, postdoctoral researcher in Law Science Technology & Society at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, "The coexistence of humans and algorithmic profiling machines"

Susanne Krasmann, Professor at the Faculty of Economy and Social Sciences, (Criminology) Hamburg University, "The desire for truth - and the secret of algorithms"

The conference will further include a roundtable discussion with representatives from the Norwegian Ministries on "Data & the everyday of security authorities".

Please send your abstracts until the 21st of September to Mareile Kaufmann: markau at prio.no. The paper should be submitted in the first week of December.