1. Jan Achterbergh Radboud University Nijmegen
Dark organizational infrastructures Some advice to the perverted designer
Jan Achterbergh
Radboud University Nijmegen

2. Goal: to give some advice to the perverted designer
Underline impact of infrastructures on human flourishing
Provide insight in socio-cybernetic underpinnings of (dark) infrastructures
Enable the identification of dark infrastructures in actual organizations
Step 1. Inspiration: disciplines as described by Foucault, a fine example of a ‘dark’ design
Step 2. Generalization: mapping the disciplines to the functional lay-out of organizations taken as adaptive systems

3. Inspiration: disciplines
Disciplines: methods, new in the history of mankind, “which made possible the meticulous control of the operations of the body, which assured the constant subjection of its forces and imposed upon them a relation of docility-utility” (Foucault, 1977, p. 137).
Analysis of processes
Analysis of bodily behavior
Analysis of space
Syntheses of space, behavior, and processes

4. 5. Hierarchical (panoptic) surveillance Normalizing sanctions
Washing
Housekeeping
Simple medical care
Caregiver 1 - e
Caregiver f - o
Caregiver p - z
Client 1
Client 2
…………..
Client n-1
Client n
5. Hierarchical (panoptic) surveillance
Normalizing sanctions
Examination

5. Inspiration: disciplines
Disquieting features
Minimal and contingent goals
Trivializing non-trivial behavior
Reach into the mind of their subjects
Make fear into a prime motivator
Reduce responsibility and involvement
Make constant subjection geared to docility and utility into a scientifically supported project
Until now: disciplines are only one instance
Is generalization possible?

6. Generalization: mapping the disciplines to a functional model of organizations
Adaptation of goals
Realization of goals
Strategic regulation
Design regulation
Operational regulation
Performing primary activities
Infrastructure
Structure HR
Technology
Meaningful survival

7. Performing primary activities
Generalization: mapping the disciplines to a functional model of organizations
Performing primary activities
Docile and productive behavior of bodies geared to contingent goals
Operational regulation
Hierarchical surveillance
Applying normalizing sanctions
Design regulation
Analysis & synthesis of space, bodily operations,processes resulting in infrastucture
Examination
Strategic regulation
Contingent goals
Docility and utility of ‘bodies’

8. Generalization: mapping the disciplines on a functional model of organizations
Perhaps most disquieting: the disciplines fit nicely into the functional model describing organizations as adaptive systems…
…in principle all organizations as adaptive systems CAN be designed to realize the six disquieting effects
This is a huge opportunity for the perverted designer
To cash in on this opportunity: the perverted designer should build
- organizational structures
- HR-systems
- technologies
that optimize the realization of the six disquieting effects
How? Some tips for the perverted designer

9. Structure
Build departments obscuring as much as possible the organization’s contribution to society (economies of scale, not economies of flow)
Split up production tasks into small
standardized tasks
Separate regulatory and production
tasks and split up regulatory tasks
HR + technology
Detailed description of tasks and competencies
Related measurement system
Normalizing rewards and sanctions
Panoptic surveillance
Contingency of goals
Reducing involvement and responsibiliy / contingent goals
De-professionalizing (trivializing) profesional (non-trivial) work
Making fear prime motivational factor
Disciplining workers to discipline themselves
Enabling systematic research and improvement of discipline

10. If we look around us, it is not difficult to recognize both
the disquieting effects, and
the structural, HR and technology designs that allow for these effects
Somehow, the perverted designer seems to be everywhere