When digital health meets digital capitalism, how many common goods are at stake?

In recent years, all major consumer technology corporations have moved into the domain of health research. This ‘Googlization of health research’ (‘GHR’) begs the question of how the common good will be served in this research. As critical data scholars contend, such phenomena must be situated within the political economy of digital capitalism in order to foreground the question of public interest and the common good. Here, trends like GHR are framed within a double, incommensurable logic, where private gain and economic value are pitted against public good and societal value. While helpful for highlighting the exploitative potential of digital capitalism, this framing is limiting, insofar as it acknowledges only one conception of the common good. This article uses the analytical framework of modes of justification developed by Boltanksi and Thévenot to identify a plurality of orders of worth and conceptualizations of the common good at work in GHR. Not just the ‘civic’ (doing good for society) and ‘market’ (enhancing wealth creation) orders, but also an ‘industrial’ (increasing efficiency), a ‘project’ (innovation and experimentation), and what I call a ‘vitalist’ (proliferating life) order. Using promotional material of GHR initiatives and preliminary interviews with participants in GHR projects, I ask what moral orientations guide different actors in GHR. Engaging seriously with these different conceptions of the common good is paramount. First, in order to critically evaluate them and explicate what is at stake in the move towards GHR, and ultimately, in order to develop viable governance solutions that ensure strong ‘civic’ components.

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PILIRIQATIGIINNIQ ‘Working in a collaborative way for the common good’

International Journal of Critical Indigenous Studies ◽

10.5204/ijcis.v7i1.117 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 7 (1) ◽

pp. 1-14 ◽

Cited By ~ 17

Author(s):

Gwen Healy ◽

Andrew Tagak Sr.

Keyword(s):

Indigenous Knowledge ◽

Health Research ◽

Common Good ◽

Ways Of Knowing ◽

Indigenous Communities ◽

The Arctic ◽

The Common Good ◽

Health Related Research ◽

Health Related ◽

The Common

Increasing attention on the Arctic has led to an increase in research in this area. Health research in Arctic Indigenous communities is also increasing as part of this movement. A growing segment of the research community is focused on explaining and understanding Indigenous knowledge and ways of knowing. Researchers have become increasingly aware that Indigenous knowledge must be perceived, collected and shared in ways that are unique to, and shaped by, the communities and individuals from which this knowledge is gathered. This paper adds to this body of literature to provide Inuit perspectives on health-related research epistemologies and methodologies, with the intent that it may inform health researchers with an interest in Arctic health. The Inuit concepts of inuuqatigiittiarniq (“being respectful of all people”), unikkaaqatigiinniq (story-telling), pittiarniq (“being kind and good”), and iqqaumaqatigiinniq (“all things coming into one”) and piliriqatigiinniq (“working together for the common good”) are woven into a responsive community health research model grounded in Inuit ways of knowing which is shared and discussed.

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Beyond privacy vs. health: a justification analysis of the contact-tracing apps debate in the Netherlands

Ethics and Information Technology ◽

10.1007/s10676-020-09555-x ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Lotje Elizabeth Siffels

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

The Netherlands ◽

Common Good ◽

Public Debate ◽

Contact Tracing ◽

Ethical Perspective ◽

The Common Good ◽

Orders Of Worth ◽

The Common ◽

The Government

Abstract In the Netherlands, as in many other nations, the government has proposed the use of a contact-tracing app as a means of helping to contain the spread of the corona virus. The discussion about the use of such an app has mostly been framed in terms of a tradeoff between privacy and public health. This research statement presents an analysis of the Dutch public debate on Corona-apps by using the framework of Orders of Worth by Boltanski and Thévenot (1991). It argues that this framework can help us to move beyond the dichotomy of privacy vs. public health by recognizing a plurality of conceptions of the common good in the debate about contact-tracing apps. This statement presents six orders of worth present in the Dutch debate: civic, domestic, vitality, market, industrial and project, and argues that the identification of which common goods are at stake will contribute to discussions about the use of this technology from a standpoint with a richer ethical perspective.

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Aufgaben, Organisation und Entwicklung des Aargauischen Waldwirtschaftsverbandes | Tasks, mandate, organisation and development of the Forestry Association in the canton of Argovia

Schweizerische Zeitschrift fur Forstwesen ◽

10.3188/szf.2003.0258 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 154 (7) ◽

pp. 258-262

Author(s):

Rudolf Kull

Keyword(s):

Common Good ◽

Economic Value ◽

Important Criterion ◽

Forest Owners ◽

The Common Good ◽

The Common

Associations solve diverse, everyday tasks and problems, while where possible keeping the interests of their members, forest owners and their representatives in mind. Priorities are drawn up that benefit as many people as possible. The most important criterion is economic value, as the main source of income is wood yield. In addition, the Forestry Association puts its weight behind the remunerate of the function of the forest and tasks carried out by forest owners that serve the common good. A lot of background work is accomplished and important goals can be reached in small steps.

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Towards a Framework for Understanding Discursive Regime Destabilisation: A Case Study of a Social Movement Organisation “Economy for the Common Good”

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su11164385 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 11 (16) ◽

pp. 4385

Author(s):

Olga Koretskaya ◽

Christian Scholl

Keyword(s):

Social Movement ◽

Common Good ◽

Economic Transition ◽

Analytical Framework ◽

Transformation Process ◽

Economic Transformation ◽

The Common Good ◽

Structured Analysis ◽

The Common

Despite increasing scepticism about the conventional growth model, the topic of destabilisation of socio-economic regimes has not yet captured scholarly interest. This paper addresses this gap and serves a twofold purpose. First, it develops an analytical framework for studying discursive regime destabilisation based on previous research by Turnheim and colleagues. The framework is novel as it allows for: (1) structured analysis of framing interactions between niche and regime actors; (2) visualised mapping of discursive actors; and (3) identification of phases of discursive destabilisation. Second, the paper contributes to the literature on an ongoing practice of socio-economic transformations by applying the framework to a case study of a social movement organisation, “Economy for the Common Good” (ECG), that seeks to advance socio-economic transition. The suggested framework was useful for analysing the ECG. First, it demonstrated that niche actors employed mostly motivational and prognostic frames supporting the alternative economic approach, while the regime diffused mostly diagnostic frames focusing on the perceived negative aspects of the niche. Second, by applying the framework, we identified three relevant destabilisation phases in this socio-economic transformation process: Blindness and Denial, Incremental Responses to Problems and Increasing Doubts and Diversification. We argue that the framing of the niche affects different actor groups differently: while representatives of high authorities remained in the first phase of destabilisation, regional authorities and private companies already appeared at the second and third phases.

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