Algorithmic Legal Reasoning As Racializing Assemblage, Ezekiel J. Dixon-Román, Ama Nyame-Mensah, Allison R. Russell
Dec 2017
Algorithmic Legal Reasoning As Racializing Assemblage, Ezekiel J. Dixon-Román, Ama Nyame-Mensah, Allison R. Russell
Ezekiel J Dixon-Román
This paper critically examines the use of predictive analytics in U.S. criminal justice policy and practice, with a particular focus on the ways in which these technological practices are reproducing and reinforcing structural relations of difference. Adopting a new materialist lens, which posits algorithms as more-than-human ontologies, the paper explores the process by which algorithms become racializing assemblages through their encounters with administrative data generated at various stages of criminal justice, and guided by choices made by decision makers and researchers. It addresses the following questions: In what ways do the algorithms become part of a larger sociotechnical apparatus of …
The Computational Turn In Education Research: Critical And Creative Perspectives On The Digital Data Deluge, Elizabeth De Freitas, Ezekiel J. Dixon-Román
Dec 2016
The Computational Turn In Education Research: Critical And Creative Perspectives On The Digital Data Deluge, Elizabeth De Freitas, Ezekiel J. Dixon-Román
Ezekiel J Dixon-Román
In his exceptional survey of current big data methods in the social sciences, Kitchin (2014) describes the current state of affairs as a “data deluge”. Indeed, the diluvian metaphors of flood and deluge abound in our current computational culture, as we surf the dynamic surface of a seemingly inhuman quantity of data. Kitchin (2014) emphasizes the challenges and opportunities for researchers in the social sciences as they delve into this deluge. In the digital datafication of life and learning, the impact on education can already be felt, but has yet to be adequately theorized; there is a growing need for …
Regenerative Capacities: New Materialisms, Inheritance, And Biopolitical Technologies In Education Policy, Ezekiel J. Dixon-Román
Dec 2016
Regenerative Capacities: New Materialisms, Inheritance, And Biopolitical Technologies In Education Policy, Ezekiel J. Dixon-Román
Ezekiel J Dixon-Román
Inheritance and social reproduction have been widely theorized and studied concepts in the social sciences. What is assumed in theories of social reproduction is a focus on social position and identity; a focus on moving from one position to another at the cost of overlooking the rich and arguably more important movement, process, and flow in between. Turning toward new materialisms for theoretical insight, this article points toward an alternative post-humanist perspective. Leaning on Massumi (2002) and Puar (2007), the author asserts that expanding the analytical focus to include the movement and process of biopolitical capacity will further sharpen the …
Algo-Ritmo: More-Than-Human Performative Acts And The Racializing Assemblages Of Algorithmic Architectures, Ezekiel J. Dixon-Román
Dec 2015
Algo-Ritmo: More-Than-Human Performative Acts And The Racializing Assemblages Of Algorithmic Architectures, Ezekiel J. Dixon-Román
Ezekiel J Dixon-Román
What happens when more-than-human digital acts tell us something about ourselves? This article examines the ways in which the algorithms of data analytics function in relation to other ontologies and assemblages and how they are shaping and forming our lives. Beginning by critically questioning the ontology of data, data are argued to be an assemblage that is materially and discursively produced from a multiplicity of apparatuses including sociopolitical relations of power and “difference.” The concept of algo-ritmo—that is, the repetition of data with alterity—is introduced as a way of understanding how the performative acts of the “soft(ware) thinking” of algorithms …
Diffractive Possibilities: Cultural Studies And Quantification, Ezekiel J. Dixon-Román
Dec 2015
Diffractive Possibilities: Cultural Studies And Quantification, Ezekiel J. Dixon-Román
Ezekiel J Dixon-Román
The belief in the methods of quantification has not been widely shared in cultural studies. On the one hand, the dominant orientation of quantitative social science research continues to hold on to positivist assumptions of objectivity and the privileged access to the “truths” of natural phenomena via the logics of mathematics. On the other hand, cultural studies has maintained a hermeneutics of suspicion toward the methods of quantification. But, to what extent does this suspicion toward quantitative inquiry compromise the deconstructive project of cultural studies by falling into the trap of the quantitative/qualitative and, related, nature/culture binaries? Building on new …
Alternative Ontologies Of Number: Rethinking The Quantitative In Computational Culture, Elizabeth De Freitas, Ezekiel J. Dixon-Román, Patti Lather
Dec 2015
Alternative Ontologies Of Number: Rethinking The Quantitative In Computational Culture, Elizabeth De Freitas, Ezekiel J. Dixon-Román, Patti Lather
Ezekiel J Dixon-Román
Introduction to special issue.
Diffracting Enfolding Futures: Critical Inquiry In Quantitative Educational Research, Ezekiel J. Dixon-Román
Dec 2015
Diffracting Enfolding Futures: Critical Inquiry In Quantitative Educational Research, Ezekiel J. Dixon-Román
Ezekiel J Dixon-Román
This article demonstrates an alternative ontological and epistemological approach to critical
inquiry with quantitative methods. By building on new materialists thought, the critical
possibilities of quantification are reconsidered via a diffractive methodology. By diffractively
reading through multiple sources of data the article demonstrates how to critically analyze the
multiplicity of “difference” in parenting practices. The diffracted results point toward the ways
in which parenting practices are a result of myriad forces that cannot be reduced to pathology or
deficiency but rather convey the inheritance of constraining and disenabling sociocultural and
historical conditions. Concluding remarks suggests the quantitative turn for critical …
