The Informational Logic of Human Rights: Network Imaginaries in the Cybernetic Age (Technicities)

What happens to the cultural politics of human rights when atrocities are rendered calculable, abuses are transformed into data, and victims become vectors? As human rights organizations have increasingly embraced information technologies this ‘datafication’ of rights has become both a reality and a pressing concern, one inextricably tangled up with questions regarding the broader political valences of human rights. Combining contemporary social and cultural theory with archival research and original ethnographic work, Josh Bowsher resituates recent critiques of human rights within ongoing theoretical discussions concerning informational capitalism, digital culture and the politics of data. Critically analysing the contemporary human rights movement as an informational politics, Bowsher provides a new conceptual agenda for both exploring and overcoming the limits of human rights in an era shaped by the data flows, network infrastructures and informational logic of late capitalism. List of Illustrations Series Editors’ Preface Acknowledgements Introduction: Beyond the Neoliberal Critique? 1 Cybernetic Capitalism/Informational ‘Politics’ 2 Seeing Violations as Events: Technologies of Capture and Cutting 3 Doing Rights as Indicators: Informatising Social and Economic Rights 4 When Violations Become Vectors: Human Rights Work in the Era of Big Data 5 After Informational Logic: Rethinking Information/Rethinking Rights Index