Eurograd message

                I am on fieldwork until April 21.
Replies to mails might be a bit slower than usually.

Thank you very much for your patience!

kind regards,
Elisabeth Luggauer


On 25. Mar 2025, at 17:37, Max Perry via Eurograd
 wrote:

> Dear all,
>  
> We would like to share details of a call for papers for a
two-day workshop at the University of Edinburgh on ‘A Social Science of
Databases’, Tuesday 17 June 2025 and Wednesday 18th June 2025.
The deadline for submissions is Friday 11th April, 6pm (BST); to apply, a
300-word abstract for a paper/presentation should be sent
to max.perry@ed.ac.uk.
>  
> The workshop is organised as part of the DARE  project, based at the
Science, Technology and Innovation Studies department at the University of
Edinburgh. The DARE project examines the intersections of data, care and
learning in the age of ‘data-driven’ healthcare. 
> Successful applicants will need to provide own travel and accommodation,
however lunches & refreshments will be provided on both days. 
> We are happy to discuss options for single -day attendance. If you are keen
to attend but do not have funding, please contact Max Perry
(max.perry@ed.ac.uk) directly, who will be happy to discuss options.
>  
> OPEN CALL: A SOCIAL SCIENCE OF DATABASES: BUILDING METAPHYSICAL MACHINES.
>  
> SELECT ID, workshop_title, key_word
> FROM workshops, keywords
>
WHERE workshop_title = “BUILDING LARGE DATABASES” AND workshops.ID =
workshop_id;
>  
> ID
> WORKSHOP_TITLE
> key_word
> 0.5216929
> A SOCIAL SCIENCE OF DATABASES
> INFRASTRUCTURE
> 0.5216929
> A SOCIAL SCIENCE OF DATABASES
> DATA
> 0.5216929
> A SOCIAL SCIENCE OF DATABASES
> DATABASE
> 0.5216929
> A SOCIAL SCIENCE OF DATABASES
> CYBERNETICS
> 0.5216929
> A SOCIAL SCIENCE OF DATABASES
> SOCIAL THEORY
> 0.5216929
> A SOCIAL SCIENCE OF DATABASES
> PHILOSOPHY OF INFORMATION
>  
> Contemporary society is marked by a will to data.  The accumulation of a
form of empirical material that is tabulated, quantifiable and ontologically
fixed as ‘data’ is now a de facto imperative for the improvement of
society ethically, normatively, and scientifically. What Hoeyer has called
‘intensified data sourcing’ (Hoeyer, 2023) has, in this way, become a
prominent feature of public institutions, private organisations, and
—increasingly— of technologies of the self (oft rendered material through
bespoke and individuated ‘smart’ devices, the primary function of which is
the production of ‘data’).
>  
> Social scientists attending to data practices have evidenced the sociality
of data usages (Beaulieu & Leonelli, 2020), of processes of transformation in
creating data (Bowker & Star, 1999), and of the curation of data towards
instrumental purposes (Tempini, 2021). In so doing data has been productively
theorised and empirically located as a socio-material practice. However, less
has been said about the machines built to store and manage data; about data
infrastructures. These machines represent a novel opportunity for
understanding our contemporary societies. Where data sourcing often prefigures
its usages, where value is located not in the ends data is put to (in the
knowledge that is produced), but in the presence of data at all (in the size
and ‘quality’ of the database) (See: Cuffe, 2025), the understanding of
the machines which house data becomes a more urgent empirical problem.
>  
> This workshop looks to bring together scholars thinking about the creation,
maintenance, and gestalt qualities of the machines that house and transmit
data; that is, those scholars thinking about databases. We invite papers from
participants working on the technical and physical development of databases
from a social science, historical, critical humanities, philosophical or
otherwise related perspective. Papers and subsequent discussion will cover
the material and epistemic machines that house data. Such discussions could
include: data ontologies, standardised languages, SQL, NoSQL, ‘blob’
storage, server farms, cloud computing, power requirements, caballing,
microprocessor technologies, the functioning and scales of binary digits,
solid state drives, hard disks, tape, ‘cyber’ security, physical security,
and the aesthetics of databases. 
>  
> The workshop will take place over two days, with one day for paper
presentations, and the second day for discussion between workshop participants
with the hope of advancing a theory of databases, and solidifying future
collaborative endeavours as panels, conferences, a journal special edition or
edited collection.
>  
> WORKSHOP DETAILS
> START:  1300 TUESDAY 17TH JUNE 2025
> FINISH:  1600 WEDNESDAY 18TH JUNE 2025
> LOCATION: UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH, UK.
>  
> Beaulieu, A. &  Leonelli, S. (2021) Data & Society: A Critical
Introduction. Washington, D.C: SAGE Publications Ltd.
> Bowker, G. C. & Star, S. L. (1999) Sorting Things Out: Classification And
Its Consequences. Cambridge, Mass. ; MIT Press.
> Cuffe, R. (2025) Data, waves and wind to be counted in the economy. BBC
News [Online]. Available
at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czedpnen168o [Accessed: 10/03/2025]
> Hoeyer, K. (2023) Data Paradoxes: The Politics of Intensified Data Sourcing
in Contemporary Healthcare, London: MIT Press.
> Tempini, N. (2021) Data curation-research: practices of data
standardization and exploration in a precision medicine database. New
genetics and society. [Online] 40 (1), 73–94.
>  
>  
>  
> Max Edward Perry
> Postdoctoral Research Fellow (DARE)
> Science, Technology and Innovation Studies
> University of Edinburgh
> Email: Max.Perry@ed.ac.uk
> Office: 2.82 / Old Surgeon’s Hall
>  
> The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland,
with registration number SC005336. Is e buidheann carthannais a th’ ann an
Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann, clàraichte an Alba, àireamh clàraidh SC005336.
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