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Digital and care: dynamics of power and resistance

Numérique et care : dynamiques de pouvoir et de résistance

Digital y cuidados: dinámicas de poder y resistencia

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Published on Monday, May 19, 2025

Abstract

This dossier aims to paint a picture of the digitization of care work. Care is understood here as the set of activities, professionals and institutions mobilized to help poor or precarious populations, with the aim of alleviating their physical and psychological distress.

 

Announcement

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The Terra-HN network and the journal Cultures & Conflits are launching a call for contributions for their collections on the theme: “Digital technology and care: dynamics of power and resistance.”

Argument

This dossier aims to paint a picture of the digitization of care work. Care is understood here as the set of activities, professionals and institutions mobilized to help poor or precarious populations, with the aim of alleviating their physical and psychological distress. It is "the set of activities that respond to the demands characterizing relationships of dependence" [Paperman and Laugier 2005, p. 328], activities guided by "compassionate action" [Svandra 2007]. Social or health support is thus seen as a form of attention to the other, which excludes administrations (such as France Travail) that deal with "claimants", without however providing this humanistic service, linked to prior training in listening and oriented more towards the well-being of the person than just their "action". In this context, it is possible to consider the worlds of both humanitarian aid and social work.  

This does not mean, however, that all so-called "social" or "humanitarian" actions should be viewed solely in terms of benevolence, humanism or aid. Logics of power and control, and even perverse effects, are of course at work in "care" schemes, even when they are delegated to organizations whose aim is to defend people without resources or promote their rights.  

Since the early 2000s [Lyon 2007; Aïm 2020], surveillance studies have rehabilitated the critical analyses that flourished in the 1960s and 1970s. Although humanitarian organizations still largely escape this sociological matrix, the control paradigm has proved decisive in thinking about social work [Verdès-Leroux 1978; Donzelot 1977].  

In the context of this appeal, the aim is to articulate, with all the necessary nuances, two theoretical approaches: on the one hand, one that emphasizes the social state, solidarity, public service missions, international law, associations and public interest groups, and repertoires of support actions; on the other hand, the one that unearths the logics of power and control over weak or vulnerable people, in what is now a properly neoliberal logic of acceptance of market conditions and submission to the constraints of insertion in order to gain access to them [Astier 2007; Bruneteaux & Terrolle 2010].

This issue devoted to the digitization of care work includes actors and organizations belonging to what Didier Fassin describes as "humanitarian government", understood as a very broad set of devices involving state actors, NGOs, social workers as well as humanitarians, to administer, preserve and foster the existence of human beings.

Proposals for articles will therefore address the digitization of the humanitarian sector, internationalized NGOs, the UN movement and the Red Cross, as well as militant associations providing aid to exiles. Social work will also be covered, including associations working with marginalized people (exiles, Roma, travellers, homeless people, etc.); as well as specialized educators and prison workers, those working with disabled people, victims of domestic or sexual violence, people suffering from addiction or social isolation, or those involved in child protection.

In short, a characteristic of humanitarian and social work is based on encounters with the other [Slim 2015; Brauman, 1996], a work of care founded on a strong interpersonal dimension [Ravon, Ion, 2012, Puaud 2013]. Yet the digitization of these sectors is changing the power relationships between actors [Ruppert, Isin, Bigo 2017]. Consequently, the central axis of the issue is an exploration of how NICTs are inscribed in and transform logics of domination between social workers, humanitarians and beneficiaries. Hence the tension between digital as a vector of emancipation and digital as a vector of power, and in particular the links between power and surveillance.  

Focus 1.   

A first line of thinking focuses on the need to rehumanize digital technology and preserve people's dignity, in order to guarantee truly emancipating digital uses. In particular, this effort involves taking into account people's privacy rights, including consent, the right to access data and the right to be forgotten [Taylor 2017; Robustelli 2022]. Some articles may thus focus on projects aimed at organizing new forms of information governance that are more inclusive of those being rescued. This could involve, for example, collective data management initiatives or governance models based on the notion of the commons [Aigrain 2005].  

However, exercising informational self-determination presupposes mastery of technological tools. Articles may therefore describe how NGOs address the digital literacy of the populations they support in order to foster their autonomy. [Casswell 2024].  

The expected proposals focus here on digital inclusion policies: these could be initiatives to promote connectivity in crisis situations, or policies for digital inclusion and the fight against illiteracy, the ultimate aim of which remains user autonomy and guaranteed access to rights, in a context of digitization of social administrations [Mazet 2021; Pharabod, Borelle, Solchany 2023].

This axis will include the analysis of new places and figures in social work: fablabs, digital public spaces, digital mediators and mediators [Ferchaud, Dumont 2017]. It is also necessary to think about the articulation of these digital inclusion policies with the right to disconnect and the normative injunctions linked to the fight against illectronism [Granjon 2022; Plantard 2016].

Finally, digital literacy issues also concern social workers and aid workers themselves. Articles may thus examine the professionalization of technological uses by NGOs to better apprehend the complexity of information flows [Frost, Khan, Vinck 2022]. But improving actors' literacy and knowledge of digital risks also means taking into account the lack of transparency inherent in surveillance capitalism [Lyon 2007; Zuboff 2019].

Focus 2.  

Another line of enquiry could focus on the different impacts of digitization on relations between NGOs, social work and private players. This implies an interest in the political economy of humanitarian and social digitalization. Articles may address the impact of digital infrastructures and the growing dependence of NGOs on private players such as Microsoft, Google or Palantir. This outsourcing raises the question of the governance of humanitarian data, its potential commercialization and the risk of capture by state or economic actors [Zuboff 2019]. As these tools are often presented as instruments of rationalization and efficiency, it may also be interesting to examine the interactions between digitization and neoliberal policies. Articles could highlight the influence of New Public Management [Marrel, Nonjon 2017; Bruno, Didier 2013] and the innovation imperative [Scott-Smith 2016] on the sectors concerned. One avenue for reflection concerns the impact of AI in automating work, in a context of imperative efficiency, due to ever more restricted social spending and funds. Hence forms of dispossession and loss of meaning, a loss of autonomy and capacity as care professionals.  

One of the major questions raised in this issue (which has already received almost all the analytical answers on migrants, such as the one proposed by the GISTI's Plein droit magazine on European techno-surveillances) is that of monitoring the private lives of "assisted" people. What would be the tools for this new kind of monitoring, making it possible to measure in a more draconian way the goodwill of users, indicators of their integration process, evaluations measured against their overall activities, their attendance, their movements, their consumption? What companies and software are available on the market, whether from the military or the private sector? Will the systems put in place to track migrants (Frontex, Europol) be extended to all welfare populations, following a logic of experimentation on racialized people that is then generalized to "internal" populations? If social workers are incapable, from their professional position, of setting up a new form of governance for people in distress, what will be the relays, intermediaries and "partnerships" with digital companies in the social arena, as is becoming commonplace in the labor sector and in the monitoring of employee performance?

Focus 3.  

We also propose to reflect on how the digitization of aid exposes humanitarian NGOs and care work in general to different forms of state surveillance. In a world of social work that was previously bureaucratic and centered on the monopoly of data confidentiality - except, of course, in the case of judicial mandates, where secrecy is then shared with the police and the judge - [Cohen 1985; Grej 2007], the externalization of data by servers and non-controllable software raises the question of data capture by other bureaucracies (police, justice), or even private actors. This process raises questions about the practice of keeping records and tracing beneficiaries, as well as various forms of data capture by governments. It also leads to the emergence of new forms of surveillance, such as cyber-attacks, and destabilization, such as disinformation campaigns.  

While laws, regulatory frameworks and ethical principles govern the relationship between social workers and "users" to ensure that the confidentiality of care is preserved, the information thus externalized on media raises challenges in terms of protecting the most intimate of private lives [Breit et al. 2021]. It should be noted that user data stored in computerized files is at greater risk as it can be copied and disseminated, whereas paper files can be locked away in offices and destroyed when the time comes [Bombardi and Brahna 2017]. Regular attempts by public authorities to requisition information or even force social workers "to give names", in the context of discrimination affecting racialized populations in the suburbs, can only be worrying, given the ease of intrusion into the files of polyvalences or services for young people placed or under supervision by social action, notably the Protection judiciaire de la jeunesse or judicial AEMO missions [Grej 2007]. Moreover, the Perben II Act of March 9, 2004 already gives the police and justice authorities the power to requisition files concerning users "to guarantee public safety" [Ibid: 16]. The nagging fears of urban riots open up a gap in the relationship between the relentless activation of intelligence and the protection of social workers' data. Surprisingly, these risks are still largely absent from the specialized literature linking digital technology and social work [S. Jabob & S. Souissi 2022], even though "techno-control of migrants" has developed throughout Europe, mobilizing the police services of the various states around FRONTEX and EUROPOL on a scale as yet unknown [GISTI 2024: Kouloglou & Hamzaoui 2024].

These forms of surveillance stem from the desire of states to maintain control over their territory, but also from the contestation of the neutrality and autonomy of the action of associations, be they humanitarian NGOs or social workers. Hence the politicization of aid, even its criminalization [Tazzioli, Walters 2019; Lewis, Bruderlein 2011]. This may be the case in certain conflicts or in the context of the fight against terrorism and the criminalization of marginalized people (exiles, homeless people, prisoners, travellers, etc.). The articles may highlight the implications in terms of surveillance and data protection of the tightening of humanitarian space, and of the various existing legislative frameworks concerning the associative sector, such as the republican commitment contract for example [Delfini, Tapin 2022].  

Part of the risk of surveillance is also linked to confrontations between great powers and their translation into digital space [Douzet 2014; Cattaruzza 2019]. Articles will analyze the geopolitical reconfigurations underway and their repercussions on the digital ecosystem of humanitarians. These dynamics are influenced by the economic and technological war between the United States and China, the gradual withdrawal of American players from international cooperation, and the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. These phenomena have direct implications in cyberspace, particularly in terms of cyberattacks and information campaigns, which also target humanitarian NGOs.  

Focus 4.  

A final line of thought focuses on the manifestations of surveillance emanating from actors in social and humanitarian work, i.e. all the dynamics that lead to the imposition, by these actors themselves, of intrusive control devices. From Illich to Deleuze and Foucault, via Donzelot, Becker and Cohen, work on social control flourished in the 1960s/1970s, only to dry up towards the end of the twentiethcentury, before enjoying renewed success in the 2000s with Surveillance Studies [Aïm 2020], while the emergence of AIs in case management, particularly at the CAF, is reintroducing the issue of social control. This imperative of efficiency also implies ever finer categorization of beneficiaries, with aid allocation based on the use of selection algorithms that elude users and imply increased surveillance of the latter and the development of "suspicion scores" [Dubois 2021; Eubanks 2018; Noble 2018; Quadrature du net 2024].  

Analyses will focus on the whole range of processes, technological assemblies and networks of actors involving associations and organizations in these forms of surveillance. These may include the transparency demands of funding bodies, profitability and efficiency policies, through the quantification of work [Macias 2022; Sandvik 2023; Jacobson 2018], but also security injunctions. The refusal of social workers, a few years ago, to provide mayors with information about "sensitive cases" in the "banlieues" is just one example of these attempts to intrude into social support practices. Articles will explore how these incentives to control beneficiaries are negotiated, internalized, circumvented or even denounced.

However, it should not be forgotten that there may also be room for manoeuvre and resistance on the part of social workers or aid workers, as well as beneficiaries. Articles may thus examine the power relationships between NGOs and the populations they help, as well as individual or collective forms of opposition to the digital tools deployed. Proposals for articles on practices of counter-surveillance and technological hijacking by associations, but above all by the people rescued, could be included [Toupin, Couture 2021].  

Submission guidelines

Please respond to this call by sending a simple email expressing your interest

before June 1, 2025,

indicating the title of your contribution, an abstract, the length you envisage (free format), and the date by which you think you will be able to submit your contribution. Depending on the responses, particularly the topics and formats, several projects for journal issues and/or collective books and/or individual publications will be considered. Each respondent will be contacted individually with a publication proposal and schedule. Please write to: <patrick.bruneteaux@univ-paris1.fr> <laetitia.della-torre@utc.fr> <jerome.valluy@univ-paris1.fr

Scientific committee

  • Valluy, Jérôme :  enseignant-chercheur à l'Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), affilié à l'Ecole de science politique de la Sorbonne ; chercheur au COSTECH-UTC, centre Connaissance, organisation et systèmes techniques (COSTECH).
  • Bruneteaux, Patrick :  chargé de recherche au CNRS ; membre du Centre européen de sociologie et de science politique (CESSP-CRPS, CNRS/Paris 1).
  • Della, Torre, Laetitia : docteure affiliée au COSTECH-UTC, centre Connaissance, organisation et systèmes techniques (COSTECH).

Date(s)

  • Sunday, June 01, 2025

Contact(s)

  • Patrick Bruneteaux
    courriel : Patrick [dot] Bruneteaux [at] univ-paris1 [dot] fr
  • Jérôme Valluy
    courriel : jerome [dot] valluy [at] univ-paris1 [dot] fr
  • Laetitia Della Torre
    courriel : laetitia [dot] della-torre [at] utc [dot] fr

Information source

  • Laetitia Della Torre
    courriel : laetitia [dot] della-torre [at] utc [dot] fr

License

CC0-1.0 This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.

To cite this announcement

« Digital and care: dynamics of power and resistance », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Monday, May 19, 2025, https://doi.org/10.58079/13y4f

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