Austerity, technology, vulnerability: the role of digital technologies for young people in situations of vulnerability and the organisations which sup
Lead Research Organisation:
Newcastle University
Department Name: Sch of Computer Science
Abstract
Austerity, technology, vulnerability: the role of digital technologies for young people in situations of vulnerability and the organisations which support them
The 2008 financial crisis became the justification for some of the deepest cuts to public services in the history of the United Kingdom (UK) (Lowndes and Pratchett, 2012), enabling the relatively unimpeded enactment of austerity policies since 2010. Whilst this is often claimed as a retreat of the state and a stripping back of its responsibilities, in practical terms, the state became more, yet 'selectively' active (Harvey, 2007) in favour of the interests of capital. The impacts of this were wide-reaching, and intensified the transformation of the politico-economic and sociocultural environment of the country in aid of the neoliberal project.
Whilst no area of UK policy remained untouched by austerity policies, one of the key areas of financial cuts and policy transformations have been services delivered to children and young people, which have seen larger reductions in levels of funding than public services generally (Youdell and McGimpsey, 2015). Austerity has altered the dominant political condition into one of scarcity and precarity (Berlant, 2011), fundamentally altering the values, practices and experiences of young people and the organisations which work to support them.
Increasingly, these organisations are charities and voluntary sector organisations, who have aimed to fill the gap in provision left by the state in the wake of austerity (Clayton, Donovan and Merchant, 2015). As charities become increasingly responsible for the provision of services to young people in situations of vulnerability, they find themselves operating in a heavily marketized and financialized environment, competing against each other for 'tenders' for contracts to deliver vital services (Buckingham, 2012) or for funding from grantmaking organisations. The neoliberal, marketized mindset which this results in means that charitable decisions cannot ever be made solely for a public good but instead must have an eye towards keeping the charity 'competitive' or to demonstrate the 'impact' of the organisation's work.
In parallel to these developments, digital technologies have become more widely used. Whilst this affords young people in situations of vulnerability quicker, easier access to services, connections to people they care about, and things that they enjoy, the rise of platform and surveillance capitalism via these technologies has resulted in the creation and extraction of data for the purposes of generating wealth for private companies (Srnicek, 2016). In the specific case of young people in situations of vulnerability - who are more prone to having data created about them that they are not privy to - these technologies may be used to make decisions about them which fail to contextually understand 'the whole story'. In such a situation, digital technologies may actively reproduce inequalities rather than mitigate them.
As organisations who work with these young people become increasingly encouraged to engage with the digital, this PhD aims to understand what happens when these two worlds meet. Firstly, what are these organisations like, post-austerity? What are their practices and processes? How do they (and their young people) imagine their worlds? Secondly, how are the cultures of the digital beginning to affect these organisations? How do organisations see and engage with the digital, and how do designers and developers imagine both their own work and the work of these organisations? Finally, in light of these points, how can we design and use technologies with young people in situations of vulnerability that respect their agency and which meaningfully contribute towards their lives?
The 2008 financial crisis became the justification for some of the deepest cuts to public services in the history of the United Kingdom (UK) (Lowndes and Pratchett, 2012), enabling the relatively unimpeded enactment of austerity policies since 2010. Whilst this is often claimed as a retreat of the state and a stripping back of its responsibilities, in practical terms, the state became more, yet 'selectively' active (Harvey, 2007) in favour of the interests of capital. The impacts of this were wide-reaching, and intensified the transformation of the politico-economic and sociocultural environment of the country in aid of the neoliberal project.
Whilst no area of UK policy remained untouched by austerity policies, one of the key areas of financial cuts and policy transformations have been services delivered to children and young people, which have seen larger reductions in levels of funding than public services generally (Youdell and McGimpsey, 2015). Austerity has altered the dominant political condition into one of scarcity and precarity (Berlant, 2011), fundamentally altering the values, practices and experiences of young people and the organisations which work to support them.
Increasingly, these organisations are charities and voluntary sector organisations, who have aimed to fill the gap in provision left by the state in the wake of austerity (Clayton, Donovan and Merchant, 2015). As charities become increasingly responsible for the provision of services to young people in situations of vulnerability, they find themselves operating in a heavily marketized and financialized environment, competing against each other for 'tenders' for contracts to deliver vital services (Buckingham, 2012) or for funding from grantmaking organisations. The neoliberal, marketized mindset which this results in means that charitable decisions cannot ever be made solely for a public good but instead must have an eye towards keeping the charity 'competitive' or to demonstrate the 'impact' of the organisation's work.
In parallel to these developments, digital technologies have become more widely used. Whilst this affords young people in situations of vulnerability quicker, easier access to services, connections to people they care about, and things that they enjoy, the rise of platform and surveillance capitalism via these technologies has resulted in the creation and extraction of data for the purposes of generating wealth for private companies (Srnicek, 2016). In the specific case of young people in situations of vulnerability - who are more prone to having data created about them that they are not privy to - these technologies may be used to make decisions about them which fail to contextually understand 'the whole story'. In such a situation, digital technologies may actively reproduce inequalities rather than mitigate them.
As organisations who work with these young people become increasingly encouraged to engage with the digital, this PhD aims to understand what happens when these two worlds meet. Firstly, what are these organisations like, post-austerity? What are their practices and processes? How do they (and their young people) imagine their worlds? Secondly, how are the cultures of the digital beginning to affect these organisations? How do organisations see and engage with the digital, and how do designers and developers imagine both their own work and the work of these organisations? Finally, in light of these points, how can we design and use technologies with young people in situations of vulnerability that respect their agency and which meaningfully contribute towards their lives?
Planned Impact
The proposed CDT for Digital Civics aims to develop a cohort of 60+ students engaged in theorising, designing, developing, and evaluating personal & community-based digital technologies to explore and create forms of civic engagement that support local communities, local service provision, and local democracy. The CDT will work directly with several local authorities (in the Northeast of England), a variety of SMEs and NGOs and some larger international corporations. As such there are various potential beneficiaries of the CDT.
Firstly, there are the students themselves who will graduate as highly skilled academic and applied researchers - well-versed in interdisciplinary collaboration and trained to transfer, leverage and exploit the insight generated from their research and who are able to contribute to the economic and social development of the UK.
The research they will conduct will be focused on supporting local communities, and given the aim to enhance public service provision and support engagement in local issues. It is likely that their research will enhance quality of life, health and wellbeing in these areas, improve social welfare and social cohesion in the participating communities and generally increase public awareness of social and economic issues that are likely to be affecting these research participants, and this will be done at various levels from older adults through to school-aged communities.
The research is also intended to have impact at a Government level, and through our direct collaboration with our participating local authority partners student research projects will directly influence policy making at local, regional and national levels. Case-based research will transform evidence-based policy, and provide evidence to support changing organisational cultures and practices (for example enhancing the role of public participation in local governance) and through shaping and enhancing the effectiveness of public services, by directly designing and developing digital augmentations. As such the research projects directly intend to enhance the efficiency, performance and sustainability of public services through the user-centred development of new digital technologies and the promotion of local activism and civic engagement.
Another significant impact of the CDT will be the development and training of skilled people in non-academic professions through the development and open-sourcing of learning materials, which aim to transfer research insight (including skills and processes as much as research 'findings') to non-academic organisations, such as SMEs, NGOs and larger corporations (sourced through our broad partner network). These SMEs, NGOs and corporations (alongside the doctoral students themselves) are also likely to be commercial beneficiaries of the research. Active processes of knowledge transfer will directly contribute towards wealth creation and economic prosperity by supporting the enhancement of research capacity, knowledge and skills in businesses and organisations and through the commercialisation of research in the formation of spin-out companies to serve the private, public and third sectors.
Firstly, there are the students themselves who will graduate as highly skilled academic and applied researchers - well-versed in interdisciplinary collaboration and trained to transfer, leverage and exploit the insight generated from their research and who are able to contribute to the economic and social development of the UK.
The research they will conduct will be focused on supporting local communities, and given the aim to enhance public service provision and support engagement in local issues. It is likely that their research will enhance quality of life, health and wellbeing in these areas, improve social welfare and social cohesion in the participating communities and generally increase public awareness of social and economic issues that are likely to be affecting these research participants, and this will be done at various levels from older adults through to school-aged communities.
The research is also intended to have impact at a Government level, and through our direct collaboration with our participating local authority partners student research projects will directly influence policy making at local, regional and national levels. Case-based research will transform evidence-based policy, and provide evidence to support changing organisational cultures and practices (for example enhancing the role of public participation in local governance) and through shaping and enhancing the effectiveness of public services, by directly designing and developing digital augmentations. As such the research projects directly intend to enhance the efficiency, performance and sustainability of public services through the user-centred development of new digital technologies and the promotion of local activism and civic engagement.
Another significant impact of the CDT will be the development and training of skilled people in non-academic professions through the development and open-sourcing of learning materials, which aim to transfer research insight (including skills and processes as much as research 'findings') to non-academic organisations, such as SMEs, NGOs and larger corporations (sourced through our broad partner network). These SMEs, NGOs and corporations (alongside the doctoral students themselves) are also likely to be commercial beneficiaries of the research. Active processes of knowledge transfer will directly contribute towards wealth creation and economic prosperity by supporting the enhancement of research capacity, knowledge and skills in businesses and organisations and through the commercialisation of research in the formation of spin-out companies to serve the private, public and third sectors.
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
| Patrick Olivier (Primary Supervisor) | |
| Kieran Cutting (Student) |
| Description | This research found that the way that austerity policies have affected organizations that support young people who are perceived to be vulnerable is greater than just a reduction of funding. It found that they have also been affected at a cultural level, where the organizations' work now focuses more on the production of 'outcomes' and 'outputs' than it does on actually providing services to young people, and that by focusing on these, worse levels of support and care are being delivered. In addition, workers are subject to an unpleasant working environment with constantly changing expectations and a workload that is unmanageable in the time allowed. These are referred to as "justification practices". I found that justification practices have occurred in parallel to processes of datafication (the transformation of aspects of lived experiences into data) and that the creation of digital technologies in austerity contexts tend to be systems which help reproduce justification practices, focusing on producing outcomes and outputs easier, more quickly, or with less expertise. This award is ongoing, but current work is finding that it is possible to develop design methods which prevent digital technologies being designed which entrench the problem of justification practices, and which help these organizations to provide more meaningful care and support. |
| Exploitation Route | From a policy perspective, this work provides a rationale for moving away from austerity policies as an effective means of delivering social care, as it has demonstrably negative impacts on all aspects of the system. From a sociological perspective, it would be productive to consider and examine other sites in which justification practices might be existing: notable examples highlighted thus far have been schools, the NHS and Higher Education. From a technological design perspective, this work could be furthered by greater investigation into methods that reduce the possibility of end-products entrenching social biases or political situations. From a technological development perspective, this work could be furthered by expanding the types of functions afforded by technologies used in social care settings, particularly emphasizing the role of technologies for participation and capacity-building. This could be strengthened by a lightweight approach that focused on building modular technologies that can be reused in similar yet distinct contexts. |
| Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Government, Democracy and Justice |
| Description | It's Our Future workshop (Royal Institute for Civil Engineers) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
| Results and Impact | 85 people attended a workshop centred on the use of design methods I have developed as part of this award. 45~ were service users of my charity partner (a national children's charity), 40~ were either practitioners within this organisation, directors within this organization, and a few were 'civic leaders' such as policymakers, civil servants and CEOs of other charities. Service users reported that it was "the first time an event like this has actually felt like it will make a difference". Civic leaders and practitioners of the organisation commented on how "refreshing" it was to hear from their service users directly, and were taken aback by the "fresh language" they used to describe their current living situations. The data from this project was analysed and used to develop a manifesto, "It's Our Future", which was used as the basis of the charity partner's influencing and campaigning work during the 2019 General Election. It is also the source of ongoing development work in relation to this award. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | http://itsourfuture.uk |