Conference Agenda

In this paper, I develop the concept of technopolitical mediation by synthesizing Peter Paul Verbeek’s (2005) theory of technological mediation and Hannah Arendt’s (1998) political theory. I demonstrate that technopolitical mediation takes place in two steps: technological mediation of common sense and technological mediation of intersubjectivity.

I explain the first step of this technopolitical mediation, the technological meditation of common sense, by discussing the Gezi Park protests in Istanbul and analyzing the active role of the park itself in initiating these protests. By showing how the park created a heterogeneous public during the protests, I extend Hannah Arendt’s political hermeneutics to materiality. I show that technologies mediate common sense, since they are the material form of the cultural memory of the society in which they are embedded: Gezi Park is a political space for the Turkish people, due to its importance in their common cultural context. Subsequently, I show that people in Turkey resisted the threatened demolition of Gezi Park because of its importance and its position in their common cultural framework. Thus, I demonstrate that Gezi Park conveyed common sense, as it is the material form of Turkey’s cultural memory.

Following this first step, in the second step of technopolitical mediation, I discuss the mediating role of technology in intersubjectivity. After demonstrating the interconnectedness of political subjectivity and intersubjectivity, I show that the political community that the political subject inhabits has a conditioning force on that individual. This allows me to argue that in order to understand the role of technology in political interaction between political subjects, it is necessary to consider the type of political community that is promoted by the material space that surrounds that community. Having presented these distinctions, I concentrate on delineating the role of technology in this interplay between acting agents and in the intersubjective relationships between acting agents.

I demonstrate that in order to observe the technological mediation of intersubjectivity, it is first necessary to observe the technological mediation of common sense. Even if everyone who deals with a technology will inevitably draw on common sense, the interaction between the subject and the intersubjective community depends, to a certain extent, on the multistable design of the respective technology. In addition, the existence of a political community that appropriates a space as public space also depends on the context in which common sense is mediated. I show that the material space in which people meet mediates both the way in which a community is created and how one becomes part of a community.

References

Arendt, H. (1998). The Human Condition; (2nd ed). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press (Original work published 1958)

Verbeek, P.P. (2005). What things do: Philosophical reflections on technology, agency, and design: Penn State Press.

Debates over data governance often emphasise the need to clarify property and ownership rights over data. A central focus in these discussions is whether introducing property rights over data may address the challenges posed by the digital economy. However, these debates frequently overlook a central aspect of contemporary data analytics: the aggregation of data and the generation of group-level insights, which render the individual incidental to analysis. Once aggregated, data typically falls outside the purview of regulatory scrutiny and ownership discussions, becoming de facto the property of technology providers.

This paper argues that discussions on data ownership tend to operate within a constrained understanding of property and ownership. Specifically, they equate property with private ownership, largely framing the debate in binary terms: private property rights over data versus no property rights at all. This binary framing limits the potential for more nuanced approaches to data governance. The assignment (and modification) of property rights carries significant normative implications. It shapes how the interests of various parties in data are enumerated and reflected, how the balance between these interests is evaluated, and how the normative implications of any modifications or interferences are understood. The framing of ‘property’ in the context of data governance, has not been without critique, but it may more closely capture the political economy dimensions of data infrastructures. The property rights lens can remain useful in centering questions of value and extraction.

Drawing on three alternative property frameworks—the bundle of rights approach, progressive property theory, and collective property theories— this paper proposes a reimagined understanding of property rights over data. The bundle of rights approach emphasizes the malleable and distributed nature of property rights, while progressive and collective property theories foreground relationality. Common to these perspectives is a conception of property not merely as a relationship between a person and a resource, but as a matrix of relationships among actors concerning a resource. This view shifts the focus from individualised exclusive rights of exclusion and alienation towards the power dynamics embedded in entitlements over data.

Relational and collective approaches to property can move beyond the limitations of individual-centric property models. This framework not only accounts for the complexities of data infrastructures premised on aggregation but also foregrounds the normative considerations that arise in assigning property rights, offering a path toward more equitable governance models in the digital economy.

There is a widespread acceptance of empathy as a principle to guide the design of technology towards moral goals like inclusivity and social justice. Concepts such as ‘digital empathy’ (Terry and Cain, 2016) to develop concern for others in online interfaces (particularly in e-health, immersive digital journalism, and interactive documentaries), virtual reality (Andrejevic and Volcic, 2020, Hassan, 2020) and empathy tools that combine analog and high digital components (Pratte, Tang, & Oehlberg, 2021; Felts, 2023) are examples of where empathy is a core orientation for technology design.

These empathy tools intend to communicate to the user/wearer the challenges that underprivileged and/or exploited individuals and groups experience as a result of biological factors (Felts, 2023) or social conditions (Hassan, 2020). They simulate vulnerabilities related to disability, period pains, policing of street protests, online harassment, hazardous work, and ageing in order to orient individuals and thereby our societies and policies towards inclusion and social justice.

These designs assume that empathy is intrinsic to morality and justice. This paper argues that this assumption is wrong.

I draw from the debates triggered by philosopher Paul Bloom’s (2016) arguments on the limits of empathy and its unintended consequences. Designers of empathy tools adopt a common definition – of being able to experience another person’s feelings; a definition, that Bloom argues, often clashes with fairness. Empathy is emotionally triggered for an identifiable victim (e.g. through images used in fundraising by charities) which results in the misallocation of resources away from avenues that may have benefited a larger number of persons. In cases where there are no identifiable victims, such as future victims of climate change, empathy is weakly triggered. More relevant for its application in designing intimate technologies is Bloom’s argument that empathy also has an ingroup bias as it is usually triggered when the subject can identify with the victim through race, caste, religion, nationality. Further, empathy need not necessarily have lasting impacts. More often than not, Bloom argues, the subject's feeling of another person’s pain is temporary without any meaningful change in behavior.

What are the implications for intimate technologies? For instance, consider the tools used to generate age-related vulnerabilities in younger/healthier persons, intended to mobilize support for accessible public spaces (Felts, 2023). Class membership, in these highly unequal times, will influence the experience of empathy, and elite wearers may direct attention to affluent parts of a city and exclusive spaces, at the expense of public spaces and parts of a city where the majority lives and works. These tools also encourage the individualization of responsibility and ignoring the need for public investments that would benefit a larger share of citizens. Elites targeted with VR tools to ‘experience’ homelessness (Andrejevic, M., & Volcic, 2020) and hazardous work that they would almost never encounter in real life are unlikely to transform into champions of higher taxation and public welfare.

Uncritical adoption of empathy is common in design (Devecchi and Guerrini, 2017). Acknowledging these downsides, I argue, will help designers of intimate technology with a more nuanced understanding of empathy and point out the consequences can be contrary to the stated aims of its adoption.

References

Andrejevic, M., & Volcic, Z. (2020). Virtual empathy. Communication, Culture, and Critique, 13(3), 295-310.

Bloom, P. (2017). Against empathy: The case for rational compassion. Random House.

Devecchi, A., & Guerrini, L. (2017). Empathy and Design. A new perspective. The Design Journal, 20(sup1), S4357-S4364.

Felts, A. (2023). Unique MIT suit helps people better understand the aging experience, MIT News, https://news.mit.edu/2023/unique-mit-suit-helps-people-better-understand-aging-experience-0120.

Hassan, R. (2020). Digitality, virtual reality and the ‘empathy machine’. Digital journalism, 8(2), 195-212.

Pratte, S., Tang, A., & Oehlberg, L. (2021, February). Evoking empathy: a framework for describing empathy tools. In Proceedings of the Fifteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction (pp. 1-15).

Terry, C., & Cain, J. (2016). The emerging issue of digital empathy. American journal of pharmaceutical education, 80(4), 58