CfP – Technopolitics: Power, Competition and Contestation over Digital Infrastructures (SASE 2027 mini-conference, Glasgow, 30 June–3 July 2027; deadline 1 November) We invite submissions to MC09, Technopolitics: Power, Competition and Contestation over Digital Infrastructures, a mini-conference at the 2027 annual conference of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE), University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 30 June – 3 July 2027, potentially with virtual sessions on 16–18 June. The deadline for abstracts is 1 November 2026 and you can submit here <https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fapp.oxfordabstracts.com%2Fstages%2F81882%2Fsubmitter&data=05%7C02%7C%7Ce680fd0bf3cd44e5292c08df23bb6566%7C2e9f06b016694589878910a06934dc61%7C0%7C0%7C639268959891376025%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=tO8Z6NXYG85TngmDcKNtVqkfB%2B8RH0FgBE%2BaquJJ0mw%3D&reserved=0>, selecting MC09 as the track. Call Digital infrastructures (broadly defined) have become unavoidable and powerful intermediaries through which our socio-economic, politicaland ecological relations are organised. In the process, wealth and market power have become concentrated in the hands of a tiny few – hyperscaling technology corporations, platforms, and AI firms. These actors are also increasingly intertwined with states, which have become dependent upon them for economic growth and governance capabilities. States themselves are vying to transform digital infrastructures into instruments of domestic control and foreign coercion. The emergence of this 'tech oligarchy' rests upon a reconfiguration of exploitative socio-political dynamics. States practise geopolitics by leveraging and bolstering uneven access to digital technologies (e.g. limiting access to AI and hardware to rivals). Communities are being disempowered by a new scramble for inputs (raw materials, minerals, water and land) to feed digital products and infrastructures. Work is increasingly reorganised via algorithmic management and labour surveillance, driving worker deskilling and automation. At the same time, these processes have also driven growing resistance movements throughout the world. The core proposition of this mini-conference is that the emergence of new and the reconfiguration of old forms of power under the rise of digital assemblages (i.e. technological artefacts, political-economic actors, institutions, and practices) constitutes 'technopolitics' (Hecht, 2011; Mitchell, 2002). Technopolitics, here, refers to the study of how political-economic power and technology infrastructures have come to interact and mutually constitute one another, resulting in variegated outcomes across social, economic, and ecological domains. While digital infrastructures increasingly define, shape and constrain political-economic possibilities, their rollout also offers distinct possibilities for potent forms of resistance to embedded power structures (however limited these may sometimes be). In that sense, we propose a multi-scalar and multidimensional understanding of technopolitics both from above and below. In keeping with the conference theme, we are also interested in how workers, communities and states push back against, regulate or build alternatives to these arrangements. We invite submissions on the following panel topics: Theorising the business operations of technology firms. From platforms to hyperscalers, various new terms have emergedto capture the operations of new technology firms. Though helpful, they often elide very significant differences in the structures and strategies of tech corporations, their complex interrelations, and the value chains in which they operate. This panel homes in on how technology firms reshuffle business models, generating new dynamics of value creation and capture, and interrogates how these competitive strategies have broader power implications for the corporate sector and its social articulations. The (geo)politics of compute and data centres. This panel explores the geopolitical dimensions of compute – AI chip wars, access to compute power and AI models – including the contentious politics of key technological infrastructures such as data centres and fibre optic cables, and the ways in which tech firms and states exercise power over them. Labour, class and exploitation in algorithmic capitalism and AI. This panel examines how digital power is ultimately constituted by various forms of human labour hidden across the AI supply chain: annotation and moderation; mining, mineral extraction and processing; hardware assembly; data-centre construction and maintenance; e-waste and recycling; and the formation of (racialised and migrant) labour regimes across these tiers. It also considers the capitalisation of 'free gifts' of nature by hyperscalers, including digital traces scraped for free. We welcome papers on worker organising and resistance across these tiers. Algorithmic states, politics, bordering and citizenship practices. This panel asks how and why states rely upon digital infrastructures and technologies for statecraft, the implications for 'digital citizens' (and non-citizens) of widespread biometric and predictive system deployment, and their political economic outcomes, including for interstate dynamics (e.g. NHS data being capitalised by Palantir, with health data potentially rebounding to the benefit of US big tech rather than the UK population). It also welcomes work on state attempts to regulate, constrain or build public alternatives to corporate digital infrastructures. Environmental politics and the socio-ecological life of AI infrastructures. This panel explores how AI infrastructures influence local ecologies and resource conflicts over land, energy, water and minerals. How do various local, national and global actors respond to environmental crises? How do tech-centric narratives influence our understanding of nature-society interaction? What forms and shape do environmental social movements take in the era of AI and what are the mobilising structures behind them? What are the various forms of emerging alternative technological visions/designs rooted in local ecological concerns and the politics that sustains it? What does equity, environmental justice, and global resource governance mean in the era of AI? Submission Abstracts of up to 1,000 words should be submitted via Oxford Abstracts at https://app.oxfordabstracts.com/stages/81882/submitter <https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fapp.oxfordabstracts.com%2Fstages%2F81882%2Fsubmitter&data=05%7C02%7C%7Ce680fd0bf3cd44e5292c08df23bb6566%7C2e9f06b016694589878910a06934dc61%7C0%7C0%7C639268959891400344%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=h0horU1uxEkCrzetKAIJSfM%2Bcsi2Np5J5uanWZfJpOI%3D&reserved=0>, selecting MC09 as the track, by 1 November 2026. Full papers are not required. Pre-formed panels of 4-5 papers can be proposed at https://app.oxfordabstracts.com/stages/83403/submitter <https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fapp.oxfordabstracts.com%2Fstages%2F83403%2Fsubmitter&data=05%7C02%7C%7Ce680fd0bf3cd44e5292c08df23bb6566%7C2e9f06b016694589878910a06934dc61%7C0%7C0%7C639268959891413910%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=HLPKf7C%2BNWutLmzgXWOELevd8qsblqkC6MX39ulb3to%3D&reserved=0> and roundtables at https://app.oxfordabstracts.com/stages/81883/submitter <https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fapp.oxfordabstracts.com%2Fstages%2F81883%2Fsubmitter&data=05%7C02%7C%7Ce680fd0bf3cd44e5292c08df23bb6566%7C2e9f06b016694589878910a06934dc61%7C0%7C0%7C639268959891426322%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=ohNHFA9G%2FQt1Cgzx7T1H67TrF2YqCmkVM96UQ3BwC5A%3D&reserved=0>. Full submission guidelines: https://sase.org/conference-submission-guidelines/ <https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsase.org%2Fconference-submission-guidelines%2F&data=05%7C02%7C%7Ce680fd0bf3cd44e5292c08df23bb6566%7C2e9f06b016694589878910a06934dc61%7C0%7C0%7C639268959891438335%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=3fUutBsxi0wtgv7Ew0p0F4GC%2FJPGFpeZnLmvFAL3NyE%3D&reserved=0>. Conference page: https://sase.org/events/2027-glasgow/ <https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsase.org%2Fevents%2F2027-glasgow%2F&data=05%7C02%7C%7Ce680fd0bf3cd44e5292c08df23bb6566%7C2e9f06b016694589878910a06934dc61%7C0%7C0%7C639268959891449663%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=DjtHJfhryUvp4gtI%2FuWllLJ%2Bn9kqZCHl5sDLaqFo304%3D&reserved=0>. Presenters must be SASE members and register for the conference (you may join up until registration closes in April 2027). We may offer a virtual option on 16–18 June 2027 depending on demand. Please direct any questions to mohammad.anwar@ed.ac.uk <mailto:mohammad.anwar@ed.ac.uk> Organisers: Mohammad Amir Anwar (Edinburgh), Steve Rolf (Sussex), Kathleen Thelen (MIT), Jamie Cross (Glasgow), Sebastián Lehuedé (KCL), Alex Taylor (Edinburgh), Jacqueline O'Reilly (Sussex)