WHAT(AND WHO) IS PANOPTIWORK

PANOPTIWORK’S GOALS

From the industrial revolution to working from home during COVID-19: technology shapes and reforms the content, methods and pace of workPanoptiwork is a reference to the Panopticon, an ideal structure which serves as a metaphor of new algorithmic governance in workplaces. Digitalisation creates opportunities for renewal of workforce management: equal information sharing, transparency and codetermination in contemporary workplaces. However, it to fulfill this promise, we need to address questions about the organization of work, working conditions, power relations, ethics of business and legal protection. Our overall objective is to bring together researchers and students from a wide variety of disciplinary backgrounds within the University of Groningen to provide multidisciplinary research and teaching on labour and digitalisation. 

Panoptiwork is funded with the YAG-SER-2022 and 2023 funding, the University of Groningen funding for interdisciplinary research

WHY INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH ON LABOUR AND DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES?

Digitalisation fundamentally changes work and organisations and since these changes are multi-faceted, we need combining insights from different disciplines to come to a better understanding of their implications. Technology impacts work routines and how digital systems and humans interact and cooperate. Digitalisation also involves ethical implications regarding human dignity and societal implications for inequality as it creates new forms of work, such as platform work and algorithmic management. Finally, lawmakers and courts are currently seeking for a more sustainable and up-to-date future of labour regulation to foster social justice and decent employment. A multidisciplinary view, in essence, would allow achieving a deeper understanding of the ever-changing relationship between digitalisation and work.

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PANOPTIWORK’S RESEARCH FELLOWS

Panoptiwork involves over 17 researchers from 7 different faculties of the University of Groningen, the coordinator of the project is Michele Molè. Dr. Wike Been and the Research Assistant Miguel Rudolf-Cibien support the organisation.

Research Assistant: Miguel Rudolf-Cibien (Research Master Student, Faculty of Philosophy)