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Toward an Analytical Understanding of Domination and Emancipation in Digitalizing Industries

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Digitalization in Industry

Abstract

In this introduction, the editors position the volume in the resurgent debate around the relationship between digitalization in industry and emancipation/domination. They argue that much of that debate suffers from three problems. First, it subscribes to a techno-deterministic logic of a string of technological revolutions and direct social consequences. Second, many of the most notable accounts operate on a binary logic which depicts the current wave of digitalization as either the technical realization of emancipation or as the final victory of domination. Third, critical social scientific analysis is hampered by the vague and indiscriminate use of central terms such as emancipation/domination, industry, and digitalization. The authors begin from tackling the latter issue by exploring these concepts and suggesting frameworks for reclaiming them as analytical categories. Finally, they introduce the contributions to the volume and sketch out, how these collectively address the remaining two problems by intervening into debates around digitalization in the workplace, the promises of digital fabrication, and the producing, configuring, and infrastructuring of users.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany

    David Seibt & Uli Meyer

  2. University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland

    Simon Schaupp

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  1. David Seibt
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Correspondence to David Seibt .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Technical University of Munich, Munich, Bayern, Germany

    Uli Meyer

  2. Technical University of Munich, Munich, Bayern, Germany

    Simon Schaupp

  3. Technical University of Munich, Munich, Bayern, Germany

    David Seibt

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Seibt, D., Schaupp, S., Meyer, U. (2019). Toward an Analytical Understanding of Domination and Emancipation in Digitalizing Industries. In: Meyer, U., Schaupp, S., Seibt, D. (eds) Digitalization in Industry. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28258-5_1

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