For the third event in our CREATe Public Lectures winter series we will welcome Blayne Haggart who will present his latest open-access book “The New Knowledge: Information, Data and the Remaking of Global Power”, co-authored with Natasha Tusikov.
The lecture will take place on Wednesday 28 February, at 5.30pm in the Humanity Lecture Theatre and will be in-person-only. CREATe’s Stefan Luca, postdoctoral researcher in platform regulation, will chair the event. After our guests’ presentation, there will be time for Q&A with the audience, as well as a drinks reception afterwards.
Please register your attendance via our BOOKITBEE page.
Abstract
From the global geopolitical arena to the smart city, control over knowledge—particularly over data and intellectual property—has become a key battleground for the exercise of economic and political power. For companies and governments alike, control over knowledge—what scholar Susan Strange calls the knowledge structure—has become a goal unto itself.
The rising dominance of the knowledge structure is leading to a massive redistribution of power, including from individuals to companies and states. Strong intellectual property rights have concentrated economic benefits in a smaller number of hands, while the “internet of things” is reshaping basic notions of property, ownership, and control. In the scramble to create and control data and intellectual property, governments and companies alike are engaging in ever-more surveillance.
The New Knowledge is a guide to and analysis of these changes, and of the emerging phenomenon of the knowledge-driven society. It highlights how the pursuit of the control over knowledge has become its own ideology, with its own set of experts drawn from those with the ability to collect and manipulate digital data. Haggart and Tusikov propose a workable path forward—knowledge decommodification—to ensure that our new knowledge is not treated simply as a commodity to be bought and sold, but as a way to meet the needs of the individuals and communities that create this knowledge in the first place.
Dr Blayne Haggart is an associate professor of political science at Brock University in St. Catharines, Canada. He is also a Senior Fellow with the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo, Ontario. His research focuses on the international political economy of knowledge, particularly intellectual property rights, data governance and internet governance.
Dr Natasha Tusikov is associate professor in the Criminology Program, Department of Social Science at York University, Canada. Her research examines the intersection among law, crime, technology, and regulation. She is the author of Chokepoints: Global Private Regulation on the Internet (University of California Press, 2017). She is a co-editor of Information, Technology and Control in a Changing World: Understanding Power Structures in the 21st Century (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). Dr. Tusikov is also co-editor of Power and Authority in Internet Governance: Return of the State? (Routledge, 2021).