HCDE Distinguished Lecture: Lucy Suchman, 'Open worlds and the limits of datafication'

This talk is in conversation with Science and Technology Studies (STS) and kindred research that works to denaturalise data by attending closely to the onto-epistemologies, labours, and interests that enable datafication. Professor Suchman's more specific focus is on projects in the automation of targeting, both in its more literal operations in the context of militarization and armed conflict and the broader sense of multiple practices of discriminatory profiling. Central to the analysis is close attention to the elision of images, categories, and things-in-the-world. Fixed and labeled within datasets, images of things and traces of lives stand as proxies suitable for computational analysis. Investigations informed by STS can help to recover the complex histories, ambivalences and multiplicities that escape these operations, opening spaces in which to consider the political economies of datafication and the possibilities of worlding otherwise.

About the HCDE Distinguished Lecture Series
The Judith Ramey and Stephanie Rosenbaum Distinguished Lecture Series in the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering brings leading experts in the fields of human-centered design and sociotechnical systems to the University of Washington to spark new ideas and innovative conversations. These events are free and are open to the public, as well as University of Washington faculty, students, and staff. Thank you to donors Judy Ramey and Stephanie Rosenbaum for making these events possible.