Democratic technologies in East Asia
Chair(s): Levi Mahonri Checketts (Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong S.A.R. (China))
Andrew Feenberg’s crucial work on democratic technology as outlined across his publications on critical theory of technology (CTT) emphasizes the needs of participant groups in disrupting hegemonic technical codes to create technologies that serve marginalized groups’ interests. Feenberg helpfully draws out his ideas through cases like Minitel, AIDS medical testing, the Americans with Disabilities Act, online teaching and various other cases. In this way, Feenberg’s (early) work is unique insofar as it relies heavily on theory (CTT), while also engaging in practical analysis. Thus, Feenberg’s approach is deeply oriented toward praxis, where theory is reshaped by empirical analysis, such as Feenberg’s later development of critical construction of technology (CCT).
This panel engages with the practical side of Feenberg’s approach, examining ways that technologies affect vulnerable populations within East Asian communities. We look for cases of empowerment and disempowerment. Insofar as Feenberg himself articulates “democratic” technical codes as serving interests against the hegemonic order, we should consider cases, similar to Feenberg’s paradigmatic ones, that demonstrate resistance, adaptation or innovation as it intersects democratic interests. More significantly, the cases examined represent other populations than those studied by Feenberg, taking into consideration both other marginalized groups (e.g. sex workers and older adults) and East Asian contexts.
The papers in this symposium frame a variety of ways of thinking democratic technologies, from various philosophical approaches (e.g., CTT, Multi-Level Perspectives, virtue ethics), to different interests of populations. The strategies employed both organically and by interest groups on behalf of populations provides insight into different ways “democracy” can be inscribed in relations with technologies, and the East Asian context of these studies provides an important perspective on non-Western democratic possibilities.
Individual presenters will share their research, and then a general discussion about the significance of this research for the particular social context of the research, theoretical questions of democracy and technology, and future possibilities will be discussed in this symposium. This symposium corresponds with a nascent project to increase collaboration on CTT and CCT in a globalized fashion.
Presentations of the Symposium
CCTV use among Hong Kong sex workers
Levi Mahonri Checketts
Hong Kong Baptist University
I will discuss the case of CCTV and sex workers. CCTV obviously functions primarily, if not exclusively, as a technology of surveillance (Norris 2002). The function of surveillance in enforcing hegemonic behaviors is well-known in the work of Michel Foucault (1977), or as Feenberg says of the panopticon, “it is…the exercise of power through surveillance” (2017, 30).
Thus, on one hand, several authors have noted how CCTV infrastructure in public spaces has led to a decrease of freedom and increase of insecurity among sex workers (Kamath and Neethi 2020; Wright, Heynen and van der Meulen 2017; Henham 2021). Sex workers find themselves avoiding public areas where CCTVs are in use because they are used by police and store owners to punish them for existing in public spaces. On the other hand, in private spaces, sex workers have appropriated CCTV technology to protect themselves. In Australia, for example, brothels have incorporated CCTVs to help sex workers potentially screen clients before meeting them. In Hong Kong, sex work is less organized, but many sex workers still use CCTV as a method of both vetting their own clients and, thanks to still images, warning other sex workers against dangerous clients (Ivy 2014).
CCTV then functions in an interestingly multistable fashion for sex workers. On one hand, it is clearly used to police and profile sex workers, a tool of the hegemony against vulnerable sex workers. Beyond the typical concern to avoid the gaze of police or their informants, sex workers must also be conscientious about places where CCTVs maintain the virtual panopticon. Even where sex work is not illegal, sex workers are typically regarded with disdain and so find themselves avoiding public gazes (Tan 2021). On the other hand, CCTV is also used in a way that protect sex workers from violent clients. By turning surveillance toward potential clients and giving the workers the position of surveiller, sex workers are able to reclaim some small amount of both autonomy and personal safety. This suggests the dual potential of surveillance—to put down those who diverge from hegemonic morality, but also to protect those who may otherwise not have protections. In this way, the multistability of CCTV is demonstrated by a democratic adaptation of this technology nearly synonymous with hegemonic control. Thus, in line with Foucault’s broader position on the bi-directional nature of power, sex workers have found a way to use this paradigmatic technology of surveillance power to their own advantage.
References:
Feenberg, Andrew. 2017. Technosystem: The Social Life of Reason. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Foucault, Michel. 1977. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated by Alan Sheridan. New York: Vintage Books.
Henham, Caroline Sally. 2021. “The Reduction of Visible Spaces of Sex Work in Europe.” Sex Research and Soc Policy 18: 909–919 https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-021-00632-4
Ivy [Pseudonym]. 2014. “Sex Work and Closed-Circuit Television.” Action for REACH OUT. https://afro.org.hk/base_show.php?id=98&lang_id=2
Kamath, Anant, and Neethi, P. (2021). “Body Politics and the Politics of Technology: Technological Experiences Among Street-Based Sex Workers in Bangalore.” Gender, Technology and Development, 25, no.3: 294–310. https://doi.org/10.1080/09718524.2021.1933348
Norris, Clive. 2002. “From Personal to Digital: CCTV, the Panopticon, and the Technological Mediation of Suspicion and Social Control.” In Surveillance as Social Sorting: Privacy, Risk and Automated Discrimination, edited by David Lyon, 249-281. London: Routledge.
Tan, Nancy Nam Hoon. 2021. Resisting Rape Culture: The Hebrew Bible and Hong Kong Sex Workers. London: Routledge.
Wright, Jordana, Heynen, Robert and van der Meulen, Emily. 2015. “‘It Depends on Who You Are, What You Are’: ‘Community Safety’ and Sex Workers’ Experience with Surveillance.” Surveillance and Society 13, no. 2: 265-282. https://ssrn.com/abstract=3014749
Democratic strateies in South Korean energy communities
Joohee Lee
Sejong University
I will discuss how renewable energy communities have been implemented within South Korea’s centralized and hierarchical energy regimes, emphasizing the democratic organizational and technological visions shaping these efforts. These citizen-led initiatives reimagine energy as a commons rather than merely a commodity, reclaiming its common-pool resource characteristics through diverse projects (Baker, 2017; Atutxa et al., 2020). While such endeavors have successfully fostered citizen empowerment and leveraged distributed energy technologies in Western countries (Barabino et al., 2023), South Korea lacks the socio-political and systemic foundations necessary for citizen-driven, distributed energy systems (Ko, 2025).
This study qualitatively examines the processes of community-level energy democratization in South Korea, focusing on how organizational and technological values are pursued within these sociocultural and political constraints. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with members of four renewable energy communities in both urban and rural areas of South Korea.
The Multi-Level Perspective (MLP) framework and energy democracy (ED) scholarship served as the analytical foundation for qualitative content analysis. The MLP framework enables the analysis of socio-technical energy transitions across three interlinked levels: landscape, regime, and niche (Geels, 2004). Energy democracy scholarship identifies three critical strategies for energy democratization at the niche level: resisting, reclaiming, and restructuring (e.g., Burke & Stephens, 2017). Integrated into the niche layer of the MLP framework, these democratization strategies helped reveal the underlying values and visions that challenge the large-scale, path-dependent, and technologically risky energy systems typically favored by centralized regimes.
Preliminary findings will be discussed from two perspectives: (a) the importance of cultivating both soft powers (e.g., a community’s history, culture, trust, and perseverance) and hard powers (e.g., acceptance of technological change and willingness to endure inconveniences from the change) to sustain energy community experiments; and (b) the role of landscape- and regime-level efforts in creating more opportunities for niche innovations through both institutional and non-institutional practices.
References
Atutxa, E., Zubero, I., & Calvo-Sotomayor, I. (2020). Scalability of low carbon energy communities in spain: An empiric approach from the renewed commons paradigm. Energies, 13(19), 5045.
Baker, S. H. (2017). Unlocking the energy commons: Expanding community energy generation. In Law and Policy for a New Economy (pp. 211-234). Edward Elgar Publishing.
Barabino, E., Fioriti, D., Guerrazzi, E., Mariuzzo, I., Poli, D., Raugi, M., ... & Thomopulos, D. (2023). Energy Communities: A review on trends, energy system modelling, business models, and optimisation objectives. Sustainable Energy, Grids and Networks, 36, 101187.
Burke, M. J., & Stephens, J. C. (2017). Energy democracy: Goals and policy instruments for sociotechnical transitions. Energy Research & Social Science, 33, 35-48.
Geels, F. W. (2004). From sectoral systems of innovation to socio-technical systems: Insights about dynamics and change from sociology and institutional theory. Research Policy, 33(6-7), 897-920.
Ko, I. (2025). “Rural exploitation” in solar energy development? A field survey experiment in South Korea on solar energy support in rural areas. Energy Research & Social Science, 119, 103837.
Addressing technological literarcy for Hong Kong elderly
Ann Gillian Chu, Wan Ping Vincent Lee, Rachel Siow Robertson
Hong Kong Baptist University
We will discuss uses of new forms of technologies among older adults in Hong Kong, drawing on studies which employed semi-structured interviews, field observations at faith-based social services working with older adults, and archival materials, with the aim of providing “thick description” (Geertz, 1973) of the current situation. We will show how technological literacy has improved recently amongst older adults in Hong Kong, allowing use of platforms which support social interactions and access to health-related information. However, remaining issues include the prevalence of a digital divide among older adults and a lack of consolidation of online services and providers. These issues are also complicated by recent waves of migration from Hong Kong, with many older adults finding themselves losing their sense of social identity and support after their children, grandchildren, and other members of their community moved away. Some recommendations for uses of technology in this context will be offered, such as a better integration between service providers and local communities and the provision of training courses. Further improvements will also be discussed regarding the user experience of digital platforms in connection with older people, including facilitating the formation of a sense of social identity and connection, agency, greater understanding, and positive emotions such as calmness and joy. Finally, the roles that faith-based social services spaces can play in supporting older adults will be discussed, including the use and integration of their online and offline spaces.
References
Geertz, C. (1973), "Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture", The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays, New York: Basic Books, pp. 3–30
Digital technologies' impact on charcter formation in Hong Kong young people
Rachel Siow Robertson
Hong Kong Baptist University
I will address the theme of character education for children and young adults through and for digital technologies. I will develop my account in relation to two digital ethics programmes I have run at my home institution: one aimed at staff of universities across Asia, and another which trained students at a secondary school in Hong Kong. I will discuss some of the unique challenges posed by current uses of technologies such as AI, arguing that they have a disproportionate impact on young people and their educators in terms of harms such as bias, oversurveillance, environmental damage, and mis-, dis-, and mal-information. I suggest that the uneven distribution of harms and benefits in the technology ecosystem means that conditions for virtue vary greatly, with young people and their educators facing a tragic dilemma of having to interact with technology for learning without having the power or option to do the all-things-considered ‘right thing.' I will relate these issues to the problem of moral luck for virtue theory: structural constraints and circumstances may rule out the possibility of virtue (Tessman, 2017). Having posed this problem, I will discuss which character traits and virtues are appropriate to recommend, and how to support their development and implementation in young people’s interactions with digital technologies. In particular, she will extend and provide novel applications for solutions which address structural constraints on virtue, including the cultivation of “burdened virtues” (Tessman, 2005) and traits which support co-liberation (D’Ignazio & Klein, 2020) and joy.
References
D’Ignazio, C., & Klein, L. (2020). Data feminism. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Available at: https://data-feminism.mitpress.mit.edu/.
Tessman, L. (2005). Burdened virtues: Virtue ethics for liberatory struggles. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Tessman, L. (2017). When doing the right thing is impossible. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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