[Air-L] 4S 2026 CfA: Open Panel on ontologies of (ac)counting with and beyond data

[Srravya C]

Hi everyone,

We invite abstract submissions (250 words) to our 4S open panel on
"Counting matters: The ontologies of (ac)counting with and beyond data.”
The panel will be hybrid, with options to join in-person in Toronto or
online. Please find the panel abstract below.

For accepted submissions, we aim to offer an opportunity to submit extended
abstracts (closer to the conference dates) for engaged feedback with
discussants.

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*[Panel: 213] Counting matters: The ontologies of (ac)counting with and
beyond data*

Techniques and technologies of counting have roots in colonial practices
that aimed to ‘see’ populations in specific ways. Such acts of “seeing”
were never merely descriptive, whether undertaken by colonial states or
markets (Scott 1998; MacKenzie 2008; Fourcade and Healy 2017). Rather, they
actively shaped how populations were governed and valued. Even as
data-driven technologies and their processing capacities have evolved,
these histories continue to shape how states, markets, civil society, and
communities perceive citizens, workers, consumers, and themselves (Sriraman
2018; Eubanks 2017; Noble 2018). Be it national citizenship registries,
Covid-19 dashboards, targeted advertising, or productivity metrics, these
contemporary projects are deemed apolitical and neutral tools for impartial
investigations and ‘evidence-based’ governance. Crucially, this framing
treats counting as descriptive rather than constitutive, obscuring the
logics (and politics) through which certain realities are made to count
over others.

Against this backdrop, this panel invites critical explorations of
contemporary modes of (ac)counting with and beyond data. Here, we
understand counting as encompassing the norms and practices of enumeration
through which our worlds are made to count and data, as encompassing not
only datasets and metrics but also qualitative accounts, records, proxies,
and other material–discursive forms. Moving beyond dominant framings of
counting as problems of surveillance and control, we problematise counting
as world-making (Verran 2001) — what ways of being and becoming are counted
and accounted for? How are contemporary data-driven technologies implicated
in these processes, co-producing these realities?  We invite contributions,
including empirical studies, theoretical and methodological reflections
that explore themes including: How are data-driven practices and methods
deployed to enumerate various spheres of everyday life? What actors,
institutions, and relations are caught within and shaped by contemporary
modes of counting? What specific counts are produced, normalised, or
overlooked by these practices? And how do they (re)make the worlds they
enumerate?

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Please share the call with students and colleagues who may be interested in
the themes of this panel.

4S 2026 is happening in Toronto from Oct 7 - 10. The deadline for abstract
submission is April 30. More details on how to make a submission can be
found here <https://www.4sonline.org/call_for_submissions_toronto.php>.


If you have any questions about the panel, please reach out to any one of
us at:
Anushree Gupta, Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad,
la20resch11008 at iith.ac.in
Srravya Chandhiramowuli, University of Edinburgh, srravya.c at ed.ac.uk
Janaki Srinivasan, University of Oxford, janaki.srinivasan at sant.ox.ac.uk


Very Best,

Srravya, Anushree, and Janaki
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