Network alliances: precarious governance through data, standards and code

Abstract

First paragraph: We share the general concerns of this book about the ways in which education, alongside most other social services from health care to air travel and banking, is being managed through comparative technologies. These effectively translate complex knowledge processes and human relationships into data. Such translations render processes calculable, and enrol them into massive digital networks that track, sequence, assess, procure and direct most social activity in advanced societies. To better understand how these processes mobilize particular educational practices, we argue for the utility of network analysis following Bruno Latour (2005). While controversial, versions of actor-network theory are increasingly brought to bear in educational studies of governmentality and knowledge. These approaches tend to avoid the limitations inherent in explanations that rely upon dominant ‘paradigms' and political ideologies. They also deliberately decentre human actors, their meanings and politics. Instead, we argue for analysis that traces myriad negotiations among material devices, embodiments, and technologies with social desires and discourses. Through these sociomaterial vitalities, particular forms of knowledge become performed and stabilized.