The Governmental Topologies of Database Devices

Democratic governance in an age of datafication: Lessons from mapping government discourses and practices

“…infrastructures and processes of sense-making (boyd and Crawford, 2012;Dalton and Thatcher, 2014;Kitchin, 2014b;Ruppert, 2012). Data and their use, as argued by Kitchin (2014b): 'constitute in Foucault's terms a form of power/knowledge; a means through which people, phenomena and territory can be surveyed and regulated' (Kitchin, 2014b: 16).…”

Towards a topological re-assemblage of education policy? Observing the implementation of performance data infrastructures and ‘centers of calculation’ in Germany

“…Such power relations are contingent in the sense of ongoing (potential) struggle and power, which determine what may, or may not, be translated in a particular way (Clarke et al 2015, 40ff.). Related to data infrastructures and data mobility, such power asymmetries are not only reflected in the crucial stages of software programming, data selection/data processing, data distribution or data visualisation, but also in the growing emergence of infrastructural 'centers of calculation' (Ruppert 2012;Sheppard 2002, 316). Within such technical zones of human-data interaction, material infrastructures are co-created with specific rules, norms and values, ultimately bringing about a new 'digital economy of scale' within 'cybergeographies' (Goodchild 2004;Ong and Collier 2005, 11).…”

“…In line with that idea, Ruppert (2012) showed how the recent expansion of database devices by the new UK Labour government has brought about new topologies, which materialise and advance new, distinctly defined individualities of subjects, ultimately resulting in a 'technocratic infrastructure for knowing subjects and populations' (Ruppert 2012, 119). (5) Topological assemblages address the emergence of new spatialities, but also transformations of temporalities (Peck and Theodore 2015, xxii), thus pointing to a still underexplored facet in policy mobility research (Clarke et al 2015, 20;DeLanda 2006, 40;Sassen 2002), which, however, seems the more important when observing datafication and digitalisation.…”

“…(Peck and Theodore 2015, xv;see also Hartong 2016a) This rising involvement of such 'intermediary' actors has been fuelled by a broad policy 'turn' towards (digital) data and numbers (Grek 2009;Ozga 2009), which includes a growing influence of large-scale and longitudinal educational data production, data mediation or technology-related consultancy practices (Hartong 2016b). Hence, in many education-related contexts, the implementation of new information and communication technologies (ICT) has been forming both an object and subject of (globalising) policy mobilities and reform (Clarke 2015, 129;Mok and Leung 2012;Ruppert 2012;Stambach and Malekela 2006): while ICT have become translated into the field of education, they simultaneously act as a core medium through which new actors have become authorised as key players to shape output-and accountability-based policy and practice.…”

Accounting for the social: Investigating commensuration and Big Data practices at Facebook

“…More recent academic considerations, however, seem to be much more cautious to avoid slipping into mere polemics or provocation. For instance, both Kitchin (2014aKitchin ( , 2014b and Evelyn Ruppert (2012Ruppert ( , 2013 have called for the need to trace out the sociotechnical arrangements or data assemblages -the material arrangements and practices that 'generate conformable spaces and the possibility of qualculation' (Callon and Law, 2005: 731) -to better understand their formation, functioning and sustenance to accompany and undergird wider conceptual, synoptic and critical analysis with detailed empirical analysis. I argue there is a need to study the implications of Big Data for society and understand how associated practices are disrupting or reconfiguring the social, industry and business relations, expertise, methods, concepts and knowledge.…”