Keynote delivered by Dr Karen Gregory, Digital sociologist and ethnographer, The University of Edinburgh
This talk will explore three research projects whose methodological approaches place work, labour, and exploitation at the heart of understanding the social effects of new, digital technology. In this talk, we will look at Oxford’s Fair Work project, Edinburgh’s Worker Observatory, and the Data Workers Inquiry. Using ethnographic methods, worker inquiry, and social data science, these projects forge a type of “public” scholarship that starts in the world as it is experienced by workers; draws together and creates dialogue among new audiences, including regulators and policy makers; and explicitly advocates for political change. As such, these projects move in and out of the University, illustrating the power of generating impact but also posing two vital questions: “knowledge for whom?” and “knowledge for what?” While these research projects are interested in extending the realm of knowledge production to workers, for their own use, this talk ends by recasting Michael Buroway’s (2021) four categories of sociology —public, critical, professional, and policy— as categories of broader academic scholarship and invites graduate students to consider where their own methodologies sit in this typology of cooperation and solidarity, particularly during this time of ongoing crisis.