The politics of redeployment: Malleable technologies and the localisation of anticipatory calculation

O'Grady, Nat

Abstract

This book chapter is a contribution to the book Algorithmic Life: Calculative Devices in an Age of Big Data. The chapter examines processes through which commercially available credit checking software has been acquired and customized by the UK Fire and Rescue Service for the purposes of risk analysis and, ultimately risk governance. I argue in the chapter that the case is indicative of broader phenomenon in which digital technologies are redeployed for purposes other than that which they were designed for. This redeployment carries with it new political complications for the organisations partaking in it: from the development of new forms of subjectivity to being caught up in broader controversies related to dataveillance that an age of so-called Big Data redefines anew.

Citation

O'Grady, N. (2015). The politics of redeployment: Malleable technologies and the localisation of anticipatory calculation. In V. Piotukh, & L. Amoore (Eds.), Algorithmic Life: Calculative Devices in an Age of Big Data, 104-121. Routledge

• Publication Date: Dec 22, 2015
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Pages: 104-121
• Book Title: Algorithmic Life: Calculative Devices in an Age of Big Data
• ISBN: 9781138852839
• Keywords: risk, calculation, algorithms, emergency, governance, Big Data
• Publisher URL: https://www.routledge.com/Algorithmic-Life-Calculative-Devices-in-the-Age-of-Big-Data/Amoore-Piotukh/p/book/9781138852846
• Additional Information: Additional Information : This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge in Algorithmic Life: Calculative Devices in an Age of Big Data on 22 December 2015, available online: https://www.routledge.com/Algorithmic-Life-Calculative-Devices-in-the-Age-of-Big-Data/Amoore-Piotukh/p/book/9781138852846