CfP: Categories, Digital Reconfiguration and Mobility in China

The conference is a joint opening conference for the Network Categorizing People and Resources in Contemporary China (CatCh) and the Moving Data - Moving People (MDMP) project on mobility and China’s social credit system. The conference aims to provide an open interdisciplinary forum for discussing the potential of categorization and configuration as original and innovative approaches to study social life, relations, practices, and governance in China. Against a backdrop of increasing digitalization and strained relations of trust, how are technologies of categorization and configuration reproduced and transformed in social relationship and digital governance?

The conference especially invites papers on the following three themes:

• histories of categorization. (e.g. historical forms of social categorization, reconfiguration of categorization based on for instance gender, place of origin and ethnicity)
• digital categorization. (e.g. the Social Credit System, digital reconfiguration, defining and selecting digital indicators, blacklisting, digital governance, health apps and Covid-19 governance)
• mobility and categorization. (e.g. domestic and international migration, digital spatial boundaries, grid management, Covid-19 and mobility

The conference will organize sessions that contain both oral presentations and work in progress papers, the latter with extended feedback.

Deadline for submission: 15 February 2022.

Keynote speakers

• Genia Kostka, Freie Universität, Berlin
• Julia Chuang, University of Maryland
• Marion Fourcade, UC Berkeley

The conference is organized jointly by University of Copenhagen, Aalborg University and the IT University of Copenhagen.

Read more about the conference, deadlines and practicalities on the conference website at AAU.