Borderlines Present - A Talk by Professor Tim Jordan on Governance and the Digital Economy
When: Thursday, April 25, 2024, 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Where: Join us in Person at Bancroft 1.08 or on MS Teams (Meeting ID: 328 756 338 036 and Passcode: AwaUn3)
About the Speaker
Tim Jordan is Professor of Digital Cultures and Director of UCL Arts and Sciences. He has researched on the social and cultural meaning of digital and internet socio-technologies. He published The Digital Economy (Polity) in 2020 and his work prior to that was on the politics of information (Information Politics, Pluto). Tim has interests in online gaming, hacking, hacktivism, blockchain technologies and the creative economy in relation to the digital. He also has interests in relation to popular protest and social movements and on the experience of ‘being in the zone’. Tim has been Head of School (Media, Film and Music) at the University of Sussex, Head of Culture, Media and Creative Industries at Kings College London and Head of Sociology at the Open University.
What the Talk is About
The talk delves into the implications of the digital economy's emergence alongside neoliberal governance structures. It questions whether the dominance of neoliberalism, with its market-driven ideologies, can accommodate the complexities of the digital era. Using Foucault's concept of homo economicus, it examines how neoliberalism intertwines with terms like biopower and governmentality. By scrutinizing practices within the digital economy such as targeted advertising and service platforms like Uber, the talk argues for the emergence of a networked subjectivity alongside traditional neoliberal frameworks. It explores how hierarchical and heterarchical governance structures intersect within digital networks, relying on information as a central organizing principle. The analysis concludes by contrasting the subjectivities of the market with those of the network, suggesting that shifts in governance patterns necessitate new strategies for fostering equitable societies. The discussion aims to provoke critical dialogue on evolving forms of governance in the digital age.
This is a talk organised by Borderlines – An Interdisciplinary Research Collective committed to social justice, radical, experimental and innovative methodologies and interdisciplinary pedagogies and alternative conceptual paradigms. The group aims to bring together diverse scholars resisting strict definition of fields and disciplines but thriving through differences and alternative vantage points. Committed to decolonizing of praxis and the problematisation of the ‘normative’ through critical enquiry, it seeks to thwart the margins, peripheries, boundaries and notions of alterity, https://www.qmul.ac.uk/busman/research/research-centres/borderlines/