H Knox
Biographic Data
| ID | 16240 |
|---|---|
| NAME | H Knox |
| GIVEN NAMES | H |
| FAMILY NAME | Knox |
| SIGNATURE | KNOX H |
| AFFILIATIONS | University College London |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2294-0258 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 221 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 14 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Everyday laboratories: Collective speculation and energy futures
Growing public concern surrounding climate change has not always led to better public knowledge of what might constitute effective action, while growing knowledge does not always produce greater concern. We argue that this gap between knowledge and concern is reproduced by prevailing practices for anticipating energy futures – including those associated with top-down modelling and forecasting, and those attempting to imagine or infer alternative …
Doing place through data: Proliferation, profiling and the perils of portrayal in local climate action
Building on work which has shown the role of digital technologies in reframing environmental relations, this paper explores ethnographically how environmental data is reconfiguring the concept of place. The paper takes as its focus an action-research project within a UK based, citizen-oriented initiative called Newtown Energy Futures, in which we sought to enfold climate and energy data into a social-justice informed attempt at climate action. By…
Safeguarding Data: The Data Consensus and the Public Good in Children's Social Services
Over the past decade, data-driven systems have transformed how UK public services engage with the population. This ethnographic study, conducted in one of the United Kingdom's poorest boroughs, investigates the implementation of a machine learning data system for identifying at-risk children in need of safeguarding. It examines the concept of a 'data consensus' amongst council workers pursuing the 'public good'. Within this consensus, the article…
Not Flying as Anticipatory Critique
In this commentary I contribute to discussions about the possibilities for postcarbon conferencing by drawing on my own experience of deciding not to fly. In this piece I explain how my epistemological position of reflexive critique cultivated within my home discipline of anthropology became compromised in the face of an increasing awareness and understanding of climate change. Reflexivity here operated not as a liberatory form but as a mode of t…
Hacking anthropology
This essay outlines how the 'hack' might offer a model for anthropological research in the face of the distributed relations evidenced by digital data. The argument builds on fieldwork with citizens and activists and looks at their attempts to understand and make use of the data produced by energy sensors and monitors. Drawing on their experiences, I suggest that 'the hack' emerges as an important form of practice that helps people navigate the p…
What Is Analysis
Recent years in anthropology have seen a noticeable trend, moving from debates about theory to a concern with method. So while some generations ago we would tend to identify ourselves as anthropologists with reference to particular theoretical paradigms-for example, Marxism, (post-)structuralism, cognitivism, cultural materialism, interpretivism-these days our tendency is to align ourselves, often eclectically, with proposals conceived as methodo…
Affective Infrastructures and the Political Imagination
This essay explores how contemporary political life is framed through engagements with material forms. Extending work that has demonstrated that politics is best understood not as a discursive or institutional sphere but as the effect of material engagements, the essay asks, just how is it that materials become the grounds for politics? Focusing on the history of a road construction project in the Peruvian Amazon, the essay illustrates how politi…
Something happened: Spectres of organization/disorganization at the airport
The article explores the practical accomplishment of organization at an international airport during the course of a number of ‘security alerts’ that disrupted routine ‘modes of ordering’ (Law, 1994). Airports, we suggest, invite us to re-think ‘organization’ as the partial, contingent and always-incomplete outcome of complex order(ing)s and disorder(ing)s played out across various spaces, agencies and materials. When ‘something happens’ we begin…
Enacting the Global in the Age of Enterprise Resource Planning
In this article we seek to address 'the experience of work in a global context' by revisiting the relationship between globalisation and information technologies and attributions of local and global effects. We do this through an empirical investigation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, information systems which are purported to enable the institution and the enactment of global business practices. Rather than looking for the metrics…
Anticipating Harm: Regulation and Irregularity on a Road Construction Project in the Peruvian Andes
This article draws on an ethnography of road construction in the Peruvian Andes to explore how engineering projects operate as sites of contemporary governance. Focusing on the way in which engineering projects entail a confrontation with dangers of various kinds, we explore how people caught up in road construction processes become preoccupied with the problem of anticipated harm. Drawing on the notion of 'codes of conduct', we suggest that the …
Cities and organisation: The information city and urban form
What happens when we take 'the city' as a site of organization? The implications of posing this question perhaps explain why it has not formed part of the traditional epistemic apparatus of the organization studies community with its disciplinary claim to distinction and expertise. Analysts have a tendency to get lost in the city: the traditional modes of classification and organization that posit an object/subject, or structure/agent, tend to fl…
Enacting Airports: Space, Movement and Modes of Ordering
In the era of an increasingly `light' and `liquid' modernity (Bauman, 2000) airports appear to be privileged and distinctive sites of organization, constitutive of what Castells calls a `space of flows' that is helping to extend and integrate the so-called `network age' of global economy and `glocal' culture. This paper draws on original empirical research at Fulchester International Airport and studies the movement of various subjects and object…
Transformative Capacity, Information Technology, and the Making of Business 'Experts
This paper explores the making of experts and the basis of claims to expertise in corporate organisational settings. The performance of expertise within organisations is increasingly associated with the implementation and use of integrated business information systems which purport to abstract the world into an informational form to make businesses run more efficiently. We argue that as these systems are put to work to replace the calculations of…
Social networks and the study of relations: Networks as Method, Metaphor and Form
Networks have recently become fashionable in social analysis but most of the new network approaches have paid scant attention to the long history of reflections upon the potential of networks as an analytical device in the social sciences. In this paper we chart the developments in networking thinking in two disciplinary areas - social network analysis and social anthropology - in order to highlight the enduring difficulties and problems with net…
Social networks and the study of relations: Networks as Method, Metaphor and Form
Networks have recently become fashionable in social analysis but most of the new network approaches have paid scant attention to the long history of reflections upon the potential of networks as an analytical device in the social sciences. In this paper we chart the developments in networking thinking in two disciplinary areas - social network analysis and social anthropology - in order to highlight the enduring difficulties and problems with net…
Affective Infrastructures and the Political Imagination
This essay explores how contemporary political life is framed through engagements with material forms. Extending work that has demonstrated that politics is best understood not as a discursive or institutional sphere but as the effect of material engagements, the essay asks, just how is it that materials become the grounds for politics? Focusing on the history of a road construction project in the Peruvian Amazon, the essay illustrates how politi…
Anticipating Harm: Regulation and Irregularity on a Road Construction Project in the Peruvian Andes
This article draws on an ethnography of road construction in the Peruvian Andes to explore how engineering projects operate as sites of contemporary governance. Focusing on the way in which engineering projects entail a confrontation with dangers of various kinds, we explore how people caught up in road construction processes become preoccupied with the problem of anticipated harm. Drawing on the notion of 'codes of conduct', we suggest that the …
Hacking anthropology
This essay outlines how the 'hack' might offer a model for anthropological research in the face of the distributed relations evidenced by digital data. The argument builds on fieldwork with citizens and activists and looks at their attempts to understand and make use of the data produced by energy sensors and monitors. Drawing on their experiences, I suggest that 'the hack' emerges as an important form of practice that helps people navigate the p…
Something happened: Spectres of organization/disorganization at the airport
The article explores the practical accomplishment of organization at an international airport during the course of a number of ‘security alerts’ that disrupted routine ‘modes of ordering’ (Law, 1994). Airports, we suggest, invite us to re-think ‘organization’ as the partial, contingent and always-incomplete outcome of complex order(ing)s and disorder(ing)s played out across various spaces, agencies and materials. When ‘something happens’ we begin…
Transformative Capacity, Information Technology, and the Making of Business 'Experts
This paper explores the making of experts and the basis of claims to expertise in corporate organisational settings. The performance of expertise within organisations is increasingly associated with the implementation and use of integrated business information systems which purport to abstract the world into an informational form to make businesses run more efficiently. We argue that as these systems are put to work to replace the calculations of…
Cities and organisation: The information city and urban form
What happens when we take 'the city' as a site of organization? The implications of posing this question perhaps explain why it has not formed part of the traditional epistemic apparatus of the organization studies community with its disciplinary claim to distinction and expertise. Analysts have a tendency to get lost in the city: the traditional modes of classification and organization that posit an object/subject, or structure/agent, tend to fl…
Doing place through data: Proliferation, profiling and the perils of portrayal in local climate action
Building on work which has shown the role of digital technologies in reframing environmental relations, this paper explores ethnographically how environmental data is reconfiguring the concept of place. The paper takes as its focus an action-research project within a UK based, citizen-oriented initiative called Newtown Energy Futures, in which we sought to enfold climate and energy data into a social-justice informed attempt at climate action. By…
Everyday laboratories: Collective speculation and energy futures
Growing public concern surrounding climate change has not always led to better public knowledge of what might constitute effective action, while growing knowledge does not always produce greater concern. We argue that this gap between knowledge and concern is reproduced by prevailing practices for anticipating energy futures – including those associated with top-down modelling and forecasting, and those attempting to imagine or infer alternative …
Social networks and the study of relations: Networks as Method, Metaphor and Form
Networks have recently become fashionable in social analysis but most of the new network approaches have paid scant attention to the long history of reflections upon the potential of networks as an analytical device in the social sciences. In this paper we chart the developments in networking thinking in two disciplinary areas - social network analysis and social anthropology - in order to highlight the enduring difficulties and problems with net…
Transformative Capacity, Information Technology, and the Making of Business 'Experts
This paper explores the making of experts and the basis of claims to expertise in corporate organisational settings. The performance of expertise within organisations is increasingly associated with the implementation and use of integrated business information systems which purport to abstract the world into an informational form to make businesses run more efficiently. We argue that as these systems are put to work to replace the calculations of…
Enacting Airports: Space, Movement and Modes of Ordering
In the era of an increasingly `light' and `liquid' modernity (Bauman, 2000) airports appear to be privileged and distinctive sites of organization, constitutive of what Castells calls a `space of flows' that is helping to extend and integrate the so-called `network age' of global economy and `glocal' culture. This paper draws on original empirical research at Fulchester International Airport and studies the movement of various subjects and object…
Cities and organisation: The information city and urban form
What happens when we take 'the city' as a site of organization? The implications of posing this question perhaps explain why it has not formed part of the traditional epistemic apparatus of the organization studies community with its disciplinary claim to distinction and expertise. Analysts have a tendency to get lost in the city: the traditional modes of classification and organization that posit an object/subject, or structure/agent, tend to fl…
Anticipating Harm: Regulation and Irregularity on a Road Construction Project in the Peruvian Andes
This article draws on an ethnography of road construction in the Peruvian Andes to explore how engineering projects operate as sites of contemporary governance. Focusing on the way in which engineering projects entail a confrontation with dangers of various kinds, we explore how people caught up in road construction processes become preoccupied with the problem of anticipated harm. Drawing on the notion of 'codes of conduct', we suggest that the …
Enacting the Global in the Age of Enterprise Resource Planning
In this article we seek to address 'the experience of work in a global context' by revisiting the relationship between globalisation and information technologies and attributions of local and global effects. We do this through an empirical investigation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, information systems which are purported to enable the institution and the enactment of global business practices. Rather than looking for the metrics…
Something happened: Spectres of organization/disorganization at the airport
The article explores the practical accomplishment of organization at an international airport during the course of a number of ‘security alerts’ that disrupted routine ‘modes of ordering’ (Law, 1994). Airports, we suggest, invite us to re-think ‘organization’ as the partial, contingent and always-incomplete outcome of complex order(ing)s and disorder(ing)s played out across various spaces, agencies and materials. When ‘something happens’ we begin…
Affective Infrastructures and the Political Imagination
This essay explores how contemporary political life is framed through engagements with material forms. Extending work that has demonstrated that politics is best understood not as a discursive or institutional sphere but as the effect of material engagements, the essay asks, just how is it that materials become the grounds for politics? Focusing on the history of a road construction project in the Peruvian Amazon, the essay illustrates how politi…
What Is Analysis
Recent years in anthropology have seen a noticeable trend, moving from debates about theory to a concern with method. So while some generations ago we would tend to identify ourselves as anthropologists with reference to particular theoretical paradigms-for example, Marxism, (post-)structuralism, cognitivism, cultural materialism, interpretivism-these days our tendency is to align ourselves, often eclectically, with proposals conceived as methodo…
Hacking anthropology
This essay outlines how the 'hack' might offer a model for anthropological research in the face of the distributed relations evidenced by digital data. The argument builds on fieldwork with citizens and activists and looks at their attempts to understand and make use of the data produced by energy sensors and monitors. Drawing on their experiences, I suggest that 'the hack' emerges as an important form of practice that helps people navigate the p…
Not Flying as Anticipatory Critique
In this commentary I contribute to discussions about the possibilities for postcarbon conferencing by drawing on my own experience of deciding not to fly. In this piece I explain how my epistemological position of reflexive critique cultivated within my home discipline of anthropology became compromised in the face of an increasing awareness and understanding of climate change. Reflexivity here operated not as a liberatory form but as a mode of t…
Doing place through data: Proliferation, profiling and the perils of portrayal in local climate action
Building on work which has shown the role of digital technologies in reframing environmental relations, this paper explores ethnographically how environmental data is reconfiguring the concept of place. The paper takes as its focus an action-research project within a UK based, citizen-oriented initiative called Newtown Energy Futures, in which we sought to enfold climate and energy data into a social-justice informed attempt at climate action. By…
Safeguarding Data: The Data Consensus and the Public Good in Children's Social Services
Over the past decade, data-driven systems have transformed how UK public services engage with the population. This ethnographic study, conducted in one of the United Kingdom's poorest boroughs, investigates the implementation of a machine learning data system for identifying at-risk children in need of safeguarding. It examines the concept of a 'data consensus' amongst council workers pursuing the 'public good'. Within this consensus, the article…
Everyday laboratories: Collective speculation and energy futures
Growing public concern surrounding climate change has not always led to better public knowledge of what might constitute effective action, while growing knowledge does not always produce greater concern. We argue that this gap between knowledge and concern is reproduced by prevailing practices for anticipating energy futures – including those associated with top-down modelling and forecasting, and those attempting to imagine or infer alternative …
Sociology (11 works) · Epistemology (9 works) · Political science (9 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Law (6 works) · Business (5 works) · Social science (5 works) · Aesthetics (4 works) · Engineering (4 works) · Geographies of human-animal interactions (4 works)