Neoliberalism has been widely criticised because of its role in prioritising ‘free markets’ as the optimum way of solving problems and organising society. In the field of education, this leads to an emphasis on the knowledge economy that can reduce both persons and education to economic actors and be detrimental to wider social and ethical goals.Drawing on a range of international contexts across informal, adult, school and university settings, this book provides innovative example...

Available open access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.This book presents emerging themes and future directions in the interdisciplinary field of critical data studies, loosely themed around the notion of shifting response-abilities in a datafied world.In each chapter an interdisciplinary group of scholars discuss a specific theme, ranging from questions around data power and the configuring of data subjects to the intersection of technology and the environment.T...

The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence has two goals. The first goal is meta-theoretical and is fulfilled by Part One, which comprises the first three chapters: an interpretation of the past (Chapter 1), the present (Chapter 2), and the future of AI (Chapter 3). Part One develops the thesis that AI is an unprecedented divorce between agency and intelligence. On this basis, Part Two investigates the consequences of such a divorce, developing the thesis that AI as a new form of agenc...

This provocative new introduction to the field of digital sociology offers a critical overview of interdisciplinary debates about new ways of knowing society that are emerging today at the interface of computing, media, social research and social life.Digital Sociology introduces key concepts, methods and understandings that currently inform the development of specifically digital forms of social enquiry. Marres assesses the relevance and usefulness of digital methods, dat...

How organizations developed in history, how they operate, and how research on them has evolvedOrganizations are all around us: government agencies, multinational corporations, social-movement organizations, religious congregations, scientific bodies, sports teams, and more. Immensely powerful, they shape all social, economic, political, and cultural life, and are critical for the planning and coordination of every activity from manufacturing cardboard boxes to synt...

EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.This important book offers practical advice for using evidence and research in policymaking. The book has two aims. First, it builds a case for ethics and global values in research and knowledge exchange, and second, it examines specific policy areas and how evidence can guide practice.The book covers important policy areas including the GM debate, the environment, Black Lives Matter and COVID-19. Each chapter as...

Distrusting Educational Technology critically explores the optimistic consensus that has arisen around the use of digital technology in education. Drawing on a variety of theoretical and empirical perspectives, this book shows how apparently neutral forms of educational technology have actually served to align educational provision and practices with neo-liberal values, thereby eroding the nature of education as a public good and moving it instead toward the individualistic tenden...

This volume tackles a quickly-evolving field of inquiry, mapping the existing discourse as part of a general attempt to place current developments in historical context; at the same time, breaking new ground in taking on novel subjects and pursuing fresh approaches. The term "A.I." is used to refer to a broad range of phenomena, from machine learning and data mining to artificial general intelligence. The recent advent of more sophisticated AI systems, which function with partial or full a...

Smart Urbanism (SU) – the rebuilding of cities through the integration of digital technologies with buildings, neighbourhoods, networked infrastructures and people – is being represented as a unique emerging ‘solution’ to the majority of problems faced by cities today. SU discourses, enacted by technology companies, national governments and supranational agencies alike, claim a supremacy of urban digital technologies for managing and controlling infrastructures, achieving greater effective...

Power needs abstraction, to make the unwieldy complexity of the social world legible and manageable. The proposition at the heart of Seeing Like a Platform is that digital technology brings new metaphors through which power operates. While industrial modernity saw society as a machinery to be designed according to detailed blueprints, digital modernity views society as organic and alive, to be herded and nudged through digital infrastructures, AI, and algorithms.

We live in an algorithmic society. Algorithms have become the main mediator through which power is enacted in our society. This book brings together three academic fields – Public Administration, Criminal Justice and Urban Governance – into a single conceptual framework, and offers a broad cultural-political analysis, addressing critical and ethical issues of algorithms.Governments are increasingly turning towards algorithms to predict criminality, deliver public services, allocate...

As AI rapidly transforms society, urgent questions have emerged on governing these powerful technologies responsibly. In AI Ethics & Governance: A Legal Perspective Vol. 1, technology lawyer and arbitrator Mark Wright offers an expert analysis of the complex legal and ethical issues surrounding AI. He explores proposals for AI governance through a pragmatic legal lens, delving into critical questions around privacy, bias, accountability, and more. Wright combines legal insights with comput...