Seeing people in the computer: The role of information technology in remote employment services. Issue 1 (24th October 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Fowkes, Lisa
• Other Names: Parsell Cameron guestEditor.; Vincent Eve guestEditor.; Klein Elise guestEditor.; Clarke Andrew guestEditor.; Walsh Tamara guestEditor.; Marston Greg guestEditor.
• Is Part Of: Australian journal of social issues. Volume 55:Issue 1(2020)
• Page Start: 13
• Page End: 26
• Publication Date: 2019-10-24
• Subjects: electronic surveillance -- employment policy -- Indigenous peoples -- mutual obligation -- remote areas; Australia -- Social policy -- Periodicals; Social service -- Australia -- Periodicals; Australia -- Social conditions -- Periodicals; Social conditions; Social service; Social policy; Australia; Periodicals; 362.99405
• DOI: 10.1002/ajs4.81
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0157-6321

Abstract

Abstract: Information technologies have been important in the emergence of new forms of control and surveillance of welfare recipients and of those who administer labour market programmes. These technologies have often appeared at the margins of accounts of welfare reform, for example as means of increasing the efficiency or consistency of services, or as constraining frontline discretion. Henman has argued, however, that information technologies need to be analysed not just as administrative tools, but as "non‐human actors, " shaping policy development and implementation in ways beyond the intentions of their human creators (Henman, Governing Electronically: E‐government and the Reconfiguration of Public Administration, Policy and Power, Palgrave MacMillan). This paper explores the way that the use of government information systems has shaped employment services in remote Australia where over 80 per cent of those included are Indigenous people. The article describes how the production and use of administrative data within employment services have supported and extended the framing of Indigenous people in remote communities as non‐compliant and as needing external direction.