Undoing Networks

2020
•
Authors:

Tero Karppi, Urs Stäheli, Clara Wieghorst, and Lea Zierott

Exploring and conceptualizing practices, technologies, and politics of disconnecting

How do we think beyond the dominant images and imaginaries of connectivity? This book explores non-usage and the “right to disconnect” from work and from the excessive demands of digital capitalism.

How do we think beyond the dominant images and imaginaries of connectivity? Undoing Networks enables a different connectivity: “digital detox” is a luxury for stressed urbanites wishing to lead a mindful life. Self-help books advocate “digital minimalism” to recover authentic experiences of the offline. Artists envision a world without the internet. Activists mobilize against the expansion of the 5G network.

If connectivity brought us virtual communities, information superhighways, and participatory culture, disconnection comes with privacy tools, Faraday shields, and figures of the shy. This book explores non-usage and the “right to disconnect” from work and from the excessive demands of digital capitalism.

Tero Karppi is assistant professor at the University of Toronto. He teaches at the Institute of Communication, Culture, Information, and Technology and at the Faculty of Information. He is author of Disconnect: Facebook’s Affective Bonds (Minnesota, 2018).



Urs Stäheli is professor of sociology and sociological theory at the University of Hamburg, Germany. He is author of Spectacular Speculation: Thrills, the Economy, and Popular Discourse.



Clara Wieghorst is a research associate and PhD student at the Center for Digital Cultures and the Institute of Sociology and Cultural Organization at Leuphana University Lüneburg.



Lea Zierott is a research associate and PhD student at the Department of Social Sciences at the University of Hamburg.


Contents


Series Foreword


Introduction. Studies in Disconnection: On the Fringes of COVID-19


Tero Karppi


1. Undoing Networks


Urs Stäheli


2. Confusing Algorithms and Undoing Body Shapes: An Interview with Fashion Designer Nicole Scheller


Lea P. Zierott


3. Undoing the Outside: On Defaults and Off-Facebook Activity


Tero Karppi


4. Glossary


Clara Wieghorst and Lea P. Zierott


Authors