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Call for Papers, Anthropology of Confinement Network Meeting
Aarhus University, 13-15 June 2023

Experiencing and Resisting Technologies of Confinement, Surveillance and Data Extraction: Research Ethics and Social Change.

Conveners: Carolina Sanchez Boe (Aarhus University), Ulla Berg (Rutgers University), and Luisa Schneider (Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam).

Over the past decade new breakthroughs in digital technologies have led to a multiplication of modes of containment through technologies such as electronic ankle monitors, facial recognition apps, iris scan technology and other identification devices that sustain modes of differential exploitation (Jacobsen 2015; Pallister-Wilkins 2016; Andersson 2018; Mezzadra, Neilson, 2019; Aradau, Tazzioli, 2020; Byler and Sánchez Boe 2020; Sánchez Boe & Mainsah 2022; Byler 2022). Ethnic or religious groups, illegalized migrants or criminalized citizens are increasingly kept in situations of protracted captivity, and digital technology incorporated in governance to control and confine and to extract value and data from them. While most techniques to identify individuals were developed and managed by civil servants up until recently, tech companies today compile unprecedented amounts of data, while rapidly developing increasingly sophisticated software that can process them, with little or no consent or oversight, and with for-profit objectives.

At the same time, confinement studies increasingly use digital tools for research projects that are designed to be open and participatory, that seek to address complex controversies and foster critical thinking through the arts, exhibitions, graphic novels, audio-visual and multimodal approaches. Many anthropologists take an active part in pushing for social change in the field of confinement, whether in collaboration with civil society, community organizations or government bodies. Some document the effects of confinement in collaboration with human rights organizations, often through collaboration and co-creation, thereby facing ethical and privacy concerns related to the production and dissemination of data about vulnerable individuals or populations.

Over two days in June 2023, the 5th Anthropology of Confinement Network Meeting aims to gather researchers and practitioners who contribute to public debate and social change in the fields of confinement which is rapidly transformed by the deployment of digital technologies, raising new ethical challenges for all actors involved including researchers. We hope to engage in discussions about the ways in which experiences of confinement are re-configured with the increased use of tech by government agencies and private subcontractors, and the ways in which these are experienced, resisted, and transformed – sometimes through counter-expertise produced with the help of digital tools.

We seek contributions from junior and senior scholars (anthropology, political science, sociology, science and technology studies, media studies, among others), who work critically to examine the variety of ways in which digital technologies intersect and transform modes of confinement and turn minoritized populations into sources of economic profit and biopolitical value. We also encourage creative submissions and seek contributions from scholars who study scholarly, activist, and civil society initiatives developed to resist and transform these processes across sites.

Please send your abstract before 10 May 2023 to Ulla Berg: uberg(at)lcs.rutgers.edu; Luisa Schneider l.t.schneider(at)vu.nl and Carolina Sanchez Boe carolina(at)sagajazz.com. You will receive an answer 15 May. Limited funding will be available for travel and stay, please state if you are interested in applying for such funding when you send your abstract, and let us know the approximate amount of money you will be applying for. The meeting will be taking place at the Interacting Minds Center at Aarhus University, Denmark from Tuesday 13 June from 12.30 to Thursday 15 June 3 pm.