Mapping technology-harm relations: From ambient harms to zemiosis

• Published in: Crime, media, culture Vol. 18; no. 4; pp. 509 - 526
• Main Author: Wood, Mark A
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01-11-2022; Sage Publications Ltd
• Subjects: Actor-network theory; Coercion; Criminology; Ethics; Gun violence; Inequality; Mapping; Morality; Oppression; Technology; Translation; technology-harm nexus; technology-crime nexus; zemiology; social harm; Postphenomenology
• ISSN: 1741-6590; 1741-6604
• DOI: 10.1177/17416590211037384

This article develops a new approach to analysing the technology-harm nexus. The approach distinguishes between different technology-harm relations: relations with technology that are harmful by virtue of what they contribute to bringing about. In this article, I focus on categorizing generative harm relations: relations with technology that are harmful by virtue of what they do to actors. Drawing together insights from zemiology, moral philosophy, postphenomenology, Stiegler’s technophenomenology, and Latour’s actor-network theory, I distinguish six generative harm relations: ambient harms, alterity harms, exclusion harms, interface harms, harm translation and zemiosis. Distinguishing between these generative harm relations helps us delineate the techno-sociality of a range of social harms, from gun violence and digital coercive control, to forms of oppression, inequality and immiseration (re)produced by algorithms.