Projects
The lab research community both hosts and serve as an inspirational playground for research projects. We sometimes engage in projects together and at other times create connections beyond the lab.
Nordic Approaches to Algorithmic Systems
Erasure Poetry and the GDPR
Beginning in 2018, this project has engaged the new General Data Protection Regulation through the form of erasure poetry. Through events in Denmark and internationally, we have convened academics and publics to create erasure poems from the text of the GDPR. Selections have been published in two erasure poetry collections. The collections are available through the Lab, and have been used in training workshops around the world! For an account of the process, see here.
Making Sense of Medicinal Cannabis Debates
Unexamined Data - Living with Ambivalences
Student Surveillance Project
During the spring semester of 2021, lecturers suddenly discovered that a new risk algorithm predicting student drop-out was activated in ITUās online learning platform; LearnIT operating through Moodle software. While the algorithm got deactivated, a student project in collaboration with ETHOS lab started, investigating the naturalisation of surveillance in learning platforms and their connection to how universities get funded.
Monster Writing
Absent Data
SSH Knowledge and Business Sustainability Database
ETHOS as a Data Provider
Offering the lab as a site for supervision and consulting in Digital Methods can be complicated in the messiness of reality, where we periodically receive requests to harvest and provide data from social media. We occasionally feel a sense of ambivalence, uneasiness and even resistance towards handing over datasets and leaving them in the hands of others. The project āETHOS as a Data Providerā attends to what kind of data ethics we find ourselves involved in by incorporating two entangled tracks. The first track concerns reflecting on and qualifying our internal process of handling these requests, and the other is to participate in the academic conversations of data ethics in practice and contribute to the field.
Moving Data, Moving People
Returning and Resisting āNormalcyā as a University Worker
Since we returned to our offices in Summer 2021, there has been a buzzing in the corners of the Lab. Conversations on how corona and the political handling of it has affected our work life has spread, and an insistence to fundamentally (re)think working conditions for knowledge producers given the prevailing neoliberal influence has grown. We consider this to be a reoccurring theme within the Lab community, and a project which is slowly figuring and finding its form. The process is highly valuable and perhaps this is the very project.Ā
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VIRT-EU
The VIRT-EU project was a Horizon 2020 collaboration between five European research partners the London School of Economics (UK), Open Rights Group (UK), Uppsala University (SE), Politechnico di Torino (IT) and Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design (DK) hosted at the IT University of Copenhagen. The project aimed to demonstrate how ethical questions can and should be addressed in the development of technology. The project outputs include tool prototypes for self-assessment and for convening conversations about ethics. ETHOS facilitated conversations between the projectās ethnographers and its network analysis scholars, hosted IoT Day with project members in 2018 and 2019.
Nordic Engineers Ethics of AI Report
Mapping a Colony
ETHOS Lab is part of a funded Europeana research project called Mapping a Colony, marking the centennial of the sale of the Danish West Indies (present day US Virgin Islands) to the United States. The project was conducted in collaboration with The Royal Library, the Uncertain Archives project, the Pastās Future project, and lead by the author Lene Asp. The objective of the Mapping a Colony project was to create an interactive map to highlight and investigate Danish colonial heritage, and ETHOS took a role in discussing the politics of mapping, creating an interactive map based on the databases, and participating in the interdisciplinary datasprint āRepresenting History Through Dataā.
Data as Relation
Data as Relation was a Velux Fonden research project hosted in the TiP group between 2017 and 2020, and focused on digitalization in the Danish State. The ETHOS Lab was a site of methods experimentation in the project, supporting conversations across the PhD projects, hosting āshut up and codeā sessions, and a data sprint on Techplomacy. The focus of methodological experimentation in the project was about bringing different fieldsites together in conversation. One way in which this was done was through monster theory, creating a Bestiary of Digital Monsters, as a means of generating conversations across field-sites.
Tech Policies in Public Schools and Problem Representations
Hanna W. Grue: ”Ā My project has sprung from my frustration over tech use andĀ policies in public schools and my believe that (the lack of) theseĀ policies have a negative effect on the pupils, the teachers, theĀ learning environments, the relations between children, parentsĀ and more. I therefore want to dig deeper into the discussionsĀ and controversies behind tech policies in public schools aroundĀ Denmark. My take off will be to look at selected, existing regulations found on public schoolsā websites, based on Carol Bacchiās argument that rules emerge in response to perceived problems. By exploring the representation of these problems in current regulations, I hope to be able to map some of the controversies regarding technology use in public schools.”
Living in a Virtual State: Estoniaās Digital Society
Isabelle Engelke: “As one of the most digitally progressive states in the world, Estonia has, as part of a digitalization initiative called āe- Residencyā, started an attempt to expand their society digitally and thus build a āvirtual stateā. The e-Residency program was launched in 2014 with the intention to attract international businesses and talent to Estonia and has sinceĀ acquired over 84,000 virtual citizens. My project aims to investigate how e-residents experience and perceive being residents of a āvirtual stateā and what socio-technical imaginaries are tied to the program both from the perspective of Estonian e-residents as well as the Estonian state authorities.”
Limitations, Gatekeeping and Community ā Experiences of Women Entering the Crypto-Community
Teresa BundgaĢrd: “When talking about gender equality, personal finances are vital. Therefore, when a whole new type of currency ā such as cryptocurrency ā is created, it is important to look at how gender plays a role in who gets access, has information on how to use it and ultimately, how these factors shape our society. Through both qualitative and quantitative methods, I will look into the experiences of female professionals on LinkedIn, and study which possible limitations and gatekeeping there exists when seeking to enter the crypto-community. Through the research, I also hope to gain an understanding of how the methods used affect the findings and ultimately, understand if there is a difference in which stories are told through quantitative and qualitative data, respectively.”
Social Media Platform Governance
David SĆøbƦk Olsen: ”Ā Social media platforms are a part of the global conversation and as more people start to engage on these platforms it becomes a prudent area to research and understand how such platforms are shaping a new form of institutional landscape. To address this, I am researching the 2021 Australian Facebook News Ban by exploring what events led to the eventual news lockdown. To investigate this topic, I will be analyzing the primary stakeholders, the Australian government, Australian media, and Facebook and compare their assessment of the news ban event up against each other. Who won the first round of negotiations? And how do they discuss the idea of success versus failure? Using Australia as an example, Iād like to discuss social media platform governance and the role it already plays and might play in the future.”