Repair work in the encounter between ‘the partially digital citizen’ and digital public sector services

With the digital-by-default and self-service strategies establishing as part of a digitalized public welfare sector in the Nordic countries, new forms of exclusions and vulnerabilities are emerging (e.g. Shou & Pors, 2019). Recent reports on citizens being outside and cut off welfare services due to lack of internet access or electronic identifications, and large groups of people reporting having the need of regular digital support from family and networks to access welfare services (e.g. Norwegian Consumer Council, 2022). To counteract such exclusions and sociotechnical misalignments, policymakers commonly target the ‘partially digital citizens’ to improve their digital competences, or the need to improve the service design, and more usable, seamless or automated services. Critical scholars however point to the complex situations of exclusion and how citizen in the encounter with digitalized services experience being ‘never good enough’ (Goedhart et al., 2022). 

In this panel, we focus on the repair work (Graham & Thrift, 2007 and Henke, 2000), as ‘the partially digital citizen’ meet digitalized welfare services. We are interested in the misalignments and the repairs performed in form of informal work, workarounds, human hands, digital support, etc. in these encounters, and what this implies for the digital in/exclusion of public sector welfare. Our examples are from different public sectors (e.g. social work, education, and health) in the Scandinavian countries.

Abstracts

Digital misfitting: a comparative approach to interdependencies in the digitalized welfare state 

Katherine Brown, University of Agder; with Barbara Nino Carreras, IT University of Copenhagen; Irina Papazu, IT University of Copenhagen; Brit Ross Winthereik, Technical University of Denmark; Mikaela Åberg, University of Gothenburg

Exclusion, discrimination, and new vulnerabilities are being recognized as companion species to digitalization of Western welfare societies (Ranchordas, 2021; Mann, 2020). Consequently, critical observers and decision-makers are looking for ways to include the digitally excluded for them to become fully fledged digital citizens. With a few exceptions, however, (Pors, 2015; Schou & Pors, 2018) there is very little understanding of the processes and mechanisms through which exclusion is happening. The approach has largely been to either fix the system (user-friendliness, service design) or fix the user (training, digital competences). This paper takes a relational and comparative approach to digital in/exclusion. Based on case studies from Denmark, Norway, and Sweden focusing on informal digital support work, we introduce the concept of digital misfitting to better understand some of the interdependences on which inclusion is premised. By showing how ‘use’ is both a matter of coordinated action and of situated scaling, our analysis problematizes the notion of a simple fit between system and user. The importance of the paper lies in describing, analyzing, and comparing social and technical interdependencies as a core feature of welfare after digitalization across three politico-administrative contexts. The theoretical contribution is an expansion of the user that cuts across scales. 

References
Schou, J., & Pors, A. S. (2018). Digital by default? A qualitative study of exclusion in digitalised welfare. Social Policy & Administration 53(3), 464-477. 
Pors, A. S. (2015). Becoming digital – passages to service in the digitized bureaucracy. Journal of Institutional Ethnography, 4(2), 177-192. 
Mann, M. (2020). Technological politics of automated welfare surveillance: Social (and data) justice through critical qualitative inquiry. Global Perspectives, 1(1). 
Ranchordas, S. (2021). Empathy in the digital administrative state. Duke LJ, 71, 1341. 

Going the extra mile: to secure home-school communication   

Mikaela Åberg, University of Gothenburg; with Annika Bergviken Rensfeldt, University of Gothenburg; Mona Lundin, University of Gothenburg; Åsa Mäkitalo, University of Gothenburg   

A substantial body of research shows how public sectors are restructured to offer digitalized services and how this impact work practices, professional conduct, and the interaction between public sectors and citizens (Dolata et al, 2020; Fitzpatrick & Ellingsen, 2013). Today, many of the school employees' responsibilities, like those in other public sector domains, are to a high degree digitally maintained (Lu et al., 2021; Selwyn et al., 2017). A recurrent task for employees in schools is to communicate with guardians through digital technologies. Different digital platforms have been implemented in schools with the argument that these will support and make communication work more efficiently. In Sweden, principals and teachers are obliged to continuously interact with guardians, but it cannot always be taken for granted that they understand and/or utilize the digital platforms that the schools are providing. This creates tensions between the teachers' responsibilities of maintaining contact while at the same time ensuring that this communication is adapted to the needs and conditions of guardians. 

This study takes an interest in the barriers experienced by teachers and principals when expected to use digital platforms for communication with guardians, and the described workarounds to overcome these barriers. Based on interviews with teachers and principals, the study addresses how school employees take the guardians' vulnerable situations of digital exclusion in perspective and how they “go the extra mile” to secure home-school communication. The study raises the issue of the invisible work that individuals and organizations do to counteract exclusions, reinforced by digitalization.  

References   
Dolata, M., Schenk, B., Fuhrer, J., Marti, A. & Schwabe, G. (2020). When the system does not fit: Coping strategies of employment consultants, Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), 29, 657-696.   
Fitzpatrick, G. & Ellingsen, G. (2013). A review of 25 years of CSCW research in healthcare: contributions, challenges and future agendas, Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 22, 609-665.  
Lu, A. J., Dillahunt, T. R., Marcu, G., & Ackerman, M. S. (2021). Data work in education: Enacting and negotiating care and control in teachers' use of data-driven classroom surveillance technology. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 5(CSCW2), 1-26.     
Selwyn, N., Nemorin, S., & Johnson, N. (2017). High-tech, hard work: An investigation of teachers’ work in the digital age. Learning, Media and Technology, 42(4), 390-405.  

Digitizing the Danes – Tracing the history of the Danish e-identification system 

Morten Heuser, Aalborg University; with Torben Elgaard Jensen, Aalborg University 

Denmark is a frontrunner in the digital transformation of society measured on parameters such as connectivity, public administration, business, and digital competences (European Commission, 2022). A key infrastructure is the national e-identification system (eID) that all citizens must use to self-identify online. Currently, the third generation of the eID system, ‘MitID’, is being rolled out giving fresh impetus to a series of long-standing public controversies about the eID systems' usability, accessibility, and security (Latour, 1987; Marres, 2007). 

This paper outlines the history of the Danish eID systems. Following the approaches of Actor-Network Theory (Latour 1993:1), it examines the co-construction of technology and society by tracing key moments of negotiation and settlement between a multitude of human and non-human actors. The study investigates the public-private partnership between the Danish government and a coalition of banks that led to the development of MitID and its predecessors.  

The findings suggest that this partnership resulted in a solution which, in favor of broad usability concerns, widespread adoption and self-service, had no particular focus on inclusiveness, digital well-being or other related citizen values. This has likely contributed to the inscription of a digital-by-default strategy in Danish society, which continues to be a struggle for many marginalized groups (Schou & Pors, 2018; Hjelholt & Hansen, 2017). Based on interviews with leading civil servants, bank representatives, and document analysis, the paper shows the gradual establishment of a digital, critical infrastructure in Danish society. The consecutive versions of Danish e-ID’s offer a historical and situated explanation for the current configuration and its implications for democratic participation and citizenship. 

References 
Digital Economy and Society Index (2022). Digital Economy and Society Index 2022. European Commission. https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/desi 
Hjelholt, M., & Hansen, J.S. (2017). Den Digitale borger. Hans Reitzels.  
Johanson, S. (2004) “Kapitel 6,” in J. Hoff (ed.) Danmark som informationssamfund: Muligheder og barrierer for Politik og Demokrati. (pp. 140–172).  Århus: Aarhus Universitetsforlag. 
Jæger, B., & Löfgren, K. (2010). The history of the future: Changes in Danish e-government strategies 1994-2010. Information Polity 15, 253-269.  
Latour, B. (1987). Science in action: How to follow scientists and engineers through society. Harvard university press. 
Latour, B. (1993). “Ethnography of a high-tech case: about the Aramis case,” in P. Lemonnier (ed.) Technological choices: Transformation in material cultures since the neolithic. London: Routledge. 
Marres, N. (2007). The issues deserve more credit pragmatist contributions to the study of public involvement in controversy. Social Studies of Science, 37(5), 759-780. 
Schou, J., & Pors, A. S. (2018). Digital by default? A qualitative study of exclusion in digitalised welfare. Social Policy & Administration 53(3), 464-477. 

Digitally inclusive public services via e-identifications? Exclusions produced in the governing of Nordic ’digital first’ policies 

Annika Bergviken Rensfeldt, University of Gothenburg ; with Mona Lundin, University of Gothenburg; Søren Skaarup, IT University of Copenhagen 

Digital identifiers such as electronic identifications (e-IDs) for accessing digitalized public services have become a main policy issue in Europe and globally. Several policies are underway to create standards and interoperable digital infrastructures to facilitate their establishment (European Commission, 2019; The Global Government Forum, 2022). In this paper we aim to problematize how e-IDs currently receive status as the main means to get access and participate in (the digital) society (Whitley & Shoemaker, 2022). In particular, we aim to examine the intersecting exclusionary aspects for citizens in the encounter with digital public services, produced as part of public sector digitalization policies and e-ID technologies. 

We draw on examples from Sweden, Denmark and Norway, countries that are reported to be at the forefront as digitalized public services (Digital Economy and Society Index, 2022). In the Nordic countries, banks, often in collaboration with governments provide the e-ID technologies. Technically, e-IDs are only compatible with certain devices and software, and sociotechnically certain individual requirements are needed (e.g. having a social security number, being over a certain age, having a permanent address, being a bank customer). Without an approved e-ID, access to public services can be very cumbersome and difficult for some inhabitants, the reliance on proxy internet use increase (Selwyn et al., 2016) and it becomes more difficult to get qualified service. Our findings demonstrate how the ‘digital first’ policies and e-ID technologies are part of sociotechnical arrangements that needs to be examined with the intersections of ’partially digital’ and ‘non-digital’ citizens in mind. 

References 
Digital Economy and Society Index (2022). Digital Economy and Society Index 2022. European Commission. https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/desi 
European Commission (2019, 7 Nov). National eIDs of six countries available for the EU citizens to use cross-border. https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/national-eids-six-countries-available-eu-citizens-use-cross-border  
The Global Government Forum (2022, 28 Feb). Eight countries set out principles for the future of digital ID. https://www.globalgovernmentforum.com/eight-countries-set-out-principles-for-the-future-of-digital-id/  
Selwyn, N., Johnson N., Nemorin S., Knight E. (2016). Going online on behalf of others: An investigation of 'proxy' internet consumers. Australian Communications Consumer Action Network. 
Whitley, E., & Schoemaker, E. (2022). On the sociopolitical configurations of digital identity principles. Data & Policy, 4, E38.  

Organizers

Annika Bergviken Rensfeldt & Brit Ross Winthereik