Digital Transformation in East Asia. From Discourse to Praxis.

According to Manuel Castells, the ‘dilemma of technological determinism’ is a pseudo-problem since technology per se is actually embedded in the dynamics of society. Thus, society itself is capable of discoursively determining and reflexively dealing with technology. In this respect the beginning of the socio-technical change is not technological progress itself, but rather a discoursive formation that condition knowledge orders of a society. A discoursive concept like ‘digitalisation’ shapes through its articulation the perceptual horizon and legitimises the modes of actions by members of a society. Repetitive performances of these actions constitute meaning structures and release a set of empirically analysable practices. Digitalisation is precisely this leap in which performativity is set in motion. This workshop seeks to analyse the discoursive process of legitimisation, the political-economisation and the standardisation through the praxis of digitalisation in East Asia.