Wounded Code/Bodies
What does it mean to inhabit a body under conditions of pervasive datafication? This talk develops the concept of the Code/Body, extending Kitchin and Dodge’s notion of code/space into the corporeal realm to theorize the mutual constitution of embodied existence and computational infrastructures. Moving beyond established accounts of data doubles and surveillant assemblages, I argue that datafication neither displaces bodily materiality nor merely represents it, but actively reconfigures its conditions of existence, mobility, and recognition. Drawing on biometric identification in refugee camps, European border infrastructures, and practices of resistance to surveillance, the talk examines how bodies become simultaneously instruments and sites of bordering, classification, and contestation. Particular attention is given to the wounds of the Code/Body: forms of embodied violence, exclusion, and precarity that exceed computational representation. Combining critical analysis with autobiographical and poetic interventions, the talk explores the material and affective consequences of inhabiting datafied bodies.
Date: 12.11.2026, 16:30–17:30 CET
Speaker
Prof. Azadeh Akbari
Professor of Critical Data & Technology Studies, Goethe University Frankfurt
Azadeh Akbari is Professor of Critical Data & Technology Studies at the Center for Critical Computational Studies (C³S) and a faculty member in the Institute for Human Geography at Goethe University Frankfurt. Her research focuses on the geopolitics of digital transformation, digital authoritarianism, data justice, and ICTs for development. Azadeh Akbari is a director of Surveillance Studies Network and the founder and director of Surveillance in the Majority World Research Network. She is also an associate editor at the journal Surveillance & Society. Azadeh Akbari identifies as an academic/activist and works closely with journalists, civil society, and policymakers on issues of surveillance and digital repression.
About: Digital Emotional Governance Seminar Series
Join us for an online seminar series exploring how emotions are measured, managed, and mobilized through digital technologies and data-driven governance. Sessions will examine topics such as affective and embodied computing, algorithmic decision-making, biometric surveillance, histories and futures of affect cultures, the strengths and weaknesses of anticipatory ethics, digital and embodied warfare, and the politics of emotional AI. The seminars are online and open to all.
With these talks we will generate discussion on the implications of emerging emotion sensing technologies for public policy, ethics, and everyday life in a digitally mediated world. Speakers provide critical perspectives on technology, governance, and society. Engage with leading thinkers and contribute to global conversations on the future of digital emotional governance.
Organisers
Tabea Bork-Hüffer
Heidelberg University
Tabea is Co-Director of the Heidelberg Centre of the Environment, founding member and Co-Investigator at the Camilla and Georg Jellinek Centre for Ethics.
Jessica Pykett
University of Birmingham
Jessica is Co-Director of the Centre for Urban Wellbeing, and Principal Investigator of the ESRC Ethics and Expertise project.
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