[Commlist] Call for Papers - Surveillance and Social Justice: Big-data politics, predictions, and potentials

Call for Papers: January 2020

Surveillance and Social Justice: Big-data politics, predictions, and 
potentials

Edited by Dr Leanne McRae (Curtin University), and Associate Professor 
Mike Kent (Curtin University)

Abstracts Due: 1 January 2020

https://sites.google.com/site/cultware/current-research/surveillance-and-social-justice 

Post 9/11 fears of terrorism have radically changed information 
gathering and intelligence structures. Massive surveillance systems have 
become a site for daily navigation. Everyday interactions require 
digitised information for going to the movies, getting insurance, paying 
bills, and accessing government services. This information is 
increasingly stored in the cloud in perpetuity with little control over 
how this information is used and deployed.
An increasing public concern with privacy and security is stimulated by 
this immense data-gathering milieu. The Cambridge Analytica scandal has 
focused attention on social media networks, while The Gorgon Stare 
project has raised concerns about the extent to which safety, risk, 
crime and harm can be responsibly managed by states as they increasingly 
outsource policing to private companies.
The motivations behind the gathering of this data is the power that it 
holds and the potential within it to shape and redefine human knowledge 
and practises. Data-sets reveal patterns of human behaviour and allow 
the tracking of outcomes and the prediction of potentialities. Despite 
Google’s growing reputation as a massive database of our personal search 
histories and ‘pioneer of surveillance capitalism’  it also is a site 
for the tremendous social benefit of this data dragnetting. Viktor 
Mayer- Schӧnberger and Kenneth Cukier recount the role Google played in 
containing a potential H1N1 outbreak:

Google could “predict” the spread of the winter flu in the United 
States, not just nationally, but down to specific regions and even 
states. The company could achieve this by looking at what people were 
searching for on the Internet. Since Google receives more than three 
billion search queries every day and saves them all, it had plenty of 
data to work with.
Google took the 50 million most common search terms that Americans type 
and compared the list with CDC data on the spread of seasonal flu 
between 2003 and 2008. The idea was to identify areas infected by the 
flu virus by what people searched for on the Internet. Others had tried 
to do this with Internet search terms, but no one else had as much data, 
processing power, and statistical know-how as Google.
We are seeking chapters that interrogate these awkward and in-between 
spaces of the surveillance society – between the oppressive and 
terrifying and the socially just and beneficial. How can the coerced 
digital participation  context service social justice rather than harm 
it? Instead of continued oppression of disempowered and unpopular 
individuals and groups, how might big-data surveillance assist 
resistance and rebellion, social justice and mobility?

Potential Topics:
Social Media and Security
Privacy and Empowerment
Big Data for Health
Governance, Sovereignty and Human Rights
CCTV, Cities and Movement through Urban Spaces
Big Data and the Environment
The GDPR and European Identity
Terms of Service and Data Use Policies
Facial Recognition Masks and other surveillance obscuring fashions
AI and the Right to be Forgotten
Big Brother in the 21st Century
Popular Culture, Big Data and the Representation of Surveillance
Parenting, Technology and Surveillance
Message Encryption and Resistance
Open Source/Open Society?
Corporate Surveillance
Submission Procedure

Potential authors are invited to submit chapter abstracts of no more 
than 500 words, including a title, 4 to 6 keywords, and a brief bio, by 
email to (m.kent /at/ curtin.edu.au) and (Leanne.mcrae /at/ curtin.edu.au) by 1 
January 2020. (Please indicate in your proposal if you wish to use any 
visual material, and how you have or will gain copyright clearance for 
visual material). Authors will receive a response by 15 February 2020, 
with those provisionally accepted due as chapters of approximately 6000 
words (including references) by 15 May 2020 for review. If you would 
like any further information, please contact Mike or Leanne.


About the editors:

Leanne McRae is a Research Officer with Curtin University in Disability 
Studies currently working on ARC funded research entitled, Navigating 
Urban Spaces. Her first book; Terror, Leisure and Consumption: Spaces 
for Harm in a Post-Crash Era was published in 2018 with Emerald. Her 
second book; Crowd-Sourced Syllabus: A Curriculum for Resistance is 
currently under contract, also with Emerald, to be published in 2020. A 
third book contracted for Lexington Books entitled Secrecy, Social 
Media, and the State: Defining Crime, Managing Harm, and Protecting 
Privacy will be completed in 2020.
Mike Kent is an Associate Professor in the Centre for Culture and 
Technology at Curtin University. Mike’s research focus is on online 
social networking platforms as well as people with disabilities and 
their use of, and access to, information communication technology and 
the Internet. His other area of research interest is in higher education 
and particularly online education. His past successful edited 
collections include Manifestos for the Future of Critical Disability 
Studies and Interdisciplinary Approaches to Disability: Looking Towards 
the Future edited with Katie Ellis, Rosemarie Garland-Thomson and Rachel 
Robertson (Routledge, 2019),  Chinese social media: Social, cultural and 
political implications with Katie Ellis and Jian Xu (Routledge, 2018), 
Disability and Social Media: Global perspectives with Katie Ellis, 
(Routledge, 2017), Massive Open Online Courses and Higher Education: 
What went right, what went wrong and where to now with Rebecca Bennett 
(Routledge, 2017), Disability and the Media: Critical Concepts in 
Cultural and Media Studies (four volumes) with Katie Ellis (Routledge 
2017), and An Education in Facebook: Higher Education and the World’s 
Largest Social Network with Tama Leaver (Routledge 2014). His 
forthcoming book projects include The Routledge International Handbook 
of Critical Disability Studies with Katie Ellis, Gaming Disability: 
Disability perspectives on contemporary video game with Katie Ellis and 
Tama Leaver, and Disability and Media – African perspectives with 
Tafadzwa Rugoho


---------------
The COMMLIST
---------------
This mailing list is a free service offered by Nico Carpentier. Please use it responsibly and wisely.
--
To subscribe or unsubscribe, please visit http://commlist.org/
--
Before sending a posting request, please always read the guidelines at http://commlist.org/
--
To contact the mailing list manager:
Email: (nico.carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
URL: http://nicocarpentier.net
---------------