Programme:
16.15-16.45 Professor Minna Ruckenstein (Centre for Consumer Society Research) - The Digital Geography of Fear
This talk zooms in to emotional articulations of how datafication ‘feels’ to query what they might tell us about the cultural shift in contemporary society that promotes affectively charged technology relations. In relocating experiences of fear and ‘mild paranoia’ associated with the digital from the personal to the collective sphere, one route forward is by way of analogy. I will build on Gill Valentine’s (1989) notion of the geography of fear that draws attention to gendered experiences in public spaces and introduce a parallel concept of the digital geography of fear to bring digital distress under a joint banner of structure of feeling. This opens a perspective on how people cope with the fact that they have limited knowledge and control over the dissemination and use of personal data. The lens of the digital geography of fear emphasizes the patterned nature of personal experiences and their links to underlying structures of power. Attending to the affective infrastructure invites us to see fear and distress in a new light, as a form of collective harm. Personal experiences can be thought of as system failures, in a sense that they repeatedly reveal informational asymmetries and related practices of power. Emotional responses call for new forms of collective action to better deal with present-day digital vulnerabilities.
16.45-17.15 University Lecturer Matti Näsi (Institute of Criminology and Legal Policy at University of Helsinki) - Current Trends and Developments in Youth Delinquency and Fear of Crime
17.15-17.45 Superintendent, D.Soc.Sc. Jari Taponen (Helsinki Police) will provide comments after the presentations, followed by general discussion and questions & answers