poornima paidipaty

Poornima Paidipaty (Cambridge) Jason Hickel (Goldsmiths) Abstract In this seminar, Dr Jason Hickel and Dr Poornima Paidipaty will critically discuss the dominant economic measurements used to gauge global poverty and inequality. Based on his new book, The Divide, Jason will present arguments at odds with the dominant narrative of global poverty and inequality reduction, and unpack the political motivations behind this narrative. He will argue that the story of progress towards shared prosperity that institutions like the Work Bank likes to portray, is highly problematic. Poornima will focus on historical shifts in framing, measuring, and understanding inequality. Her historical investigation will invite us to critically examine our notions of equity and justice, as incomes have become the dominant lens for understanding disparity.

Poornima Paidipaty (Cambridge) Jason Hickel (Goldsmiths) Abstract In this seminar, Dr Jason Hickel and Dr Poornima Paidipaty will critically discuss the dominant economic measurements used to gauge global poverty and inequality. Based on his new book, The Divide, Jason will present arguments at odds with the dominant narrative of global poverty and inequality reduction, and unpack the political motivations behind this narrative. He will argue that the story of progress towards shared prosperity that institutions like the Work Bank likes to portray, is highly problematic. Poornima will focus on historical shifts in framing, measuring, and understanding inequality. Her historical investigation will invite us to critically examine our notions of equity and justice, as incomes have become the dominant lens for understanding disparity.

The lecture by Jon Agar and Jacob Ward (University College London) will be open to all free of charge. Further information, including an abstract, is available here. Convenors Andrew McKenzie-McHarg (University of Cambridge) Poornima Paidipaty (University of Cambridge) Egle Rindzeviciute (Kingston University) Summary As more and more of our collective activities (education, pension planning, health management, environmental protection) are mediated by rapidly moving markets and computerized technologies, uncertainties abound. Such visions of a technologically mediated — and seemingly limitless — future are not new. They echo the technological futurism popularized in the middle of the twentieth century by cybernetics. Beginning with the 1948 publication of Norbert Wiener’s book, Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, cybernetics inaugurated path-breaking scientific explorations of feedback and self-regulation in biological and mechanical systems. It initiated an ambitious set of technoscientific discussions that provocatively transcended traditional disciplinary boundaries. Cyberneticians argued that patterns of feedback and self-regulation were key to understanding the operation of anti-aircraft guns, the erratic movements of victims of brain injury, the dynamics of group psychology, the relationship of human societies to their natural environment and much more. These insights furnished profound reassessments of notions of agency, of distinctions between the human and the non-human and of models of learning and memory. The scholarship on cybernetics has, however, only recently began to trace the legacies of this movement beyond the Cold War era. By providing insights into the enduring impact of mid-century techno-science on our contemporary information landscape, 'The Afterlives of Cybernetics' conference will contribute to a more thorough history of the present by helping us understand the antagonisms and synergies that animate the multiple offshoots of cybernetic thought, including operations research, AI, rational choice theory, predictive analysis, design thinking, behavioural economics and risk management. This in turn will lay the foundations for a better understanding of how these knowledge practices allow us to project, imagine and engage with uncertain and unbounded futures.

The lecture by Jon Agar and Jacob Ward (University College London) will be open to all free of charge. Further information, including an abstract, is available here. Convenors Andrew McKenzie-McHarg (University of Cambridge) Poornima Paidipaty (University of Cambridge) Egle Rindzeviciute (Kingston University) Summary As more and more of our collective activities (education, pension planning, health management, environmental protection) are mediated by rapidly moving markets and computerized technologies, uncertainties abound. Such visions of a technologically mediated — and seemingly limitless — future are not new. They echo the technological futurism popularized in the middle of the twentieth century by cybernetics. Beginning with the 1948 publication of Norbert Wiener’s book, Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, cybernetics inaugurated path-breaking scientific explorations of feedback and self-regulation in biological and mechanical systems. It initiated an ambitious set of technoscientific discussions that provocatively transcended traditional disciplinary boundaries. Cyberneticians argued that patterns of feedback and self-regulation were key to understanding the operation of anti-aircraft guns, the erratic movements of victims of brain injury, the dynamics of group psychology, the relationship of human societies to their natural environment and much more. These insights furnished profound reassessments of notions of agency, of distinctions between the human and the non-human and of models of learning and memory. The scholarship on cybernetics has, however, only recently began to trace the legacies of this movement beyond the Cold War era. By providing insights into the enduring impact of mid-century techno-science on our contemporary information landscape, 'The Afterlives of Cybernetics' conference will contribute to a more thorough history of the present by helping us understand the antagonisms and synergies that animate the multiple offshoots of cybernetic thought, including operations research, AI, rational choice theory, predictive analysis, design thinking, behavioural economics and risk management. This in turn will lay the foundations for a better understanding of how these knowledge practices allow us to project, imagine and engage with uncertain and unbounded futures.