Dodge, Martin and Kitchin, Rob (2005) Codes of life: identification codes and the machine-readable world. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 23 (6). pp. 851-881. ISSN 0263-7758

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Abstract

In this paper we present a detailed examination of identification codes, their embeddedness in everyday life, and how recent trends are qualitatively altering their nature and power. Developing a Foucaultian analysis we argue that identification codes are key components of governmentality and capitalism. They provide a means of representing, collating, sorting, categorising, matching, profiling, regulating, of generating information, knowledge, and control through processes of abstraction, compu- tation, modeling, and classification. Identification codes now provide a means of uniquely addressing all the entities and processes that make up everyday life - people, material objects, information, transactions, and territories. Moreover, they provide a means of linking these entities and processes together in complex ways to form dense rhizomic assemblages of power/knowledge. At present, however, the information that identification codes provide access to are, at best, oligopticon in nature - that is, they afford only partial and selective views. In the latter part of the paper we outline four trends - wide-scale trawling for data, increased granularity, forever storage, and enhanced processing and analysis - that seek to convert these partial oligopticons into more panoptic arrangements. In turn, we contend that these trends are part of a larger metatrend --the creation of a machine-readable world in which identification codes can be systematically and automatically 'read' and acted on by software inde- pendent of human control. This metatrend is supported by interlocking discourses such as safety, security, efficiency, antifraud, citizenship and consumer empowerment, productivity, reliability, flexi- bility, economic rationality, and competitive advantage to construct powerful, supportive discursive regimes.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	The final and definitive version of this article has been published in Environment and Planning D (2005) Vol.23 No.6. http://www.envplan.com/D.html
Keywords:	identification codes; machine-readable; software; government; capitalism;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Geography Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Institutes > National Institute for Regional and Spatial analysis, NIRSA
Item ID:	3925
Depositing User:	Prof. Rob Kitchin
Date Deposited:	03 Oct 2012 15:05
Journal or Publication Title:	Environment and Planning D: Society and Space
Publisher:	Pion
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	http://www.pion.co.uk/
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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