Alternative Futures: Digital Apps and the Governance and Experience of 'Slow Emergencies'

“另类未来”将探索边缘化社区和个人如何使用数字应用程序来扰乱和重新安排“缓慢紧急情况”——被理解为持续和地方性的伤害或损害，逐渐消耗人们和人口的情况。“缓慢紧急情况”的一个关键特征是，受其影响或受其关注的人需要声称，看似普通的情况应被视为“紧急情况”：需要某种管理当局紧急反应的情况。该项目侧重于评估如何成为使缓慢的紧急情况可见的关键方式，减轻其影响的手段，以及向政府机构提出索赔要求的资源，要求采取进一步行动，以结束或减轻伤害或损害的情况。通过对三种缓慢紧急情况（种族主义、反难民歧视、国家退出和无家可归）相关应用程序的案例研究，该项目将研究关注正义的组织如何设计、合理化和推广应用程序，以及生活在持续伤害中的人们如何使用应用程序。它将结合界面分析，移动人种学，以及对用户，应用程序设计师和与这三个领域相关的组织的深度访谈。研究结果将是首个将应用程序作为一种生活方式并试图结束缓慢紧急情况的研究。

'Alternative Futures' will explore how digital apps are used bymarginalised communities and individuals to disrupt and re-order'slow emergencies' - understood as situations of ongoing andendemic harm or damage which gradually wear down people andpopulations. A key characteristic of 'slow emergencies' are thatpeople affected by them or concerned by them need to make claimsthat seemingly ordinary situations should be treated as'emergencies': occasions necessitating an urgent response fromsome kind of governing authority. The project focuses on how appshave emerged as a key way of rendering slow emergencies visible,means of mitigating their effects, and a resource for making claimsor demands to governmental agencies for further action to end oralleviate the situation of harm or damage. Through case studies ofapps developed in relation to three slow emergencies, racism, antirefugee discrimination, and state withdrawal and homelessness, theproject will look at how apps are designed, rationalised, andpromoted by organisations concerned with justice, and used bypeople living with situations of ongoing harm. It will use acombination of interface analysis, mobile ethnographies, and in depth interviews with users, app designers, and organisationsworking in relation to each of the three areas. The result will be thefirst study of the use of apps as a way of living through andattempting to end slow emergencies.