The Informational Logic of Human Rights: Network Imaginaries in the Cybernetic Age (Technicities)

The Informational Logic of Human Rights: Network Imaginaries in the Cybernetic Age (Technicities)
by: Joshua Bowsher (Author)
Publisher:Edinburgh University Press
Publication Date: 31 Oct. 2022
Language:English
Print Length:224 pages
ISBN-10:139950990X
ISBN-13:9781399509909
Book Description
What happens to the cultural politics of human rights when atrocities are rendered calculable, abuses are transformed into data, and victims become vectors? As human rights organisations have increasingly embraced information technologies this ‘datafication’ of rights has become both a reality and a pressing concern, one inextricably tangled up with questions regarding the broader political valences of human rights. Combining contemporary social and cultural theory with archival research and original ethnographic work, Josh Bowsher resituates recent critiques of human rights within ongoing theoretical discussions concerning informational capitalism, digital culture and the politics of data. Critically analysing the contemporary human rights movement as an informational politics, Bowsher provides a new conceptual agenda for both exploring and overcoming the limits of human rights in an era shaped by the data flows, network infrastructures and informational logic of late capitalism.
About the Author
From the Back Cover Shows how digital capitalism has shaped human rights practices What happens to the cultural politics of human rights when atrocities are rendered calculable, abuses are transformed into data, and victims become vectors? As human rights organisations have increasingly embraced information technologies this ‘datafication’ of rights has become both a reality and a pressing concern, one inextricably tangled up with questions regarding the broader political valences of human rights. Combining contemporary social and cultural theory with archival research and original ethnographic work, Josh Bowsher resituates recent critiques of human rights within ongoing theoretical discussions concerning informational capitalism, digital culture and the politics of data. Critically analysing the contemporary human rights movement as an informational politics, Bowsher provides a new conceptual agenda for both exploring and overcoming the limits of human rights in an era shaped by the data flows, network infrastructures and informational logic of late capitalism. Josh Bowsher is Lecturer in Sociology at Brunel University. About the Author Joshua Bowsher, Lecturer in Sociology, Brunel University.