Exploring datafied practices, imaginaries and digital state assemblages in South and South East Asia

This Special Issue aims to problematize past and current socio-technical imaginaries and datafication practices of the rapidly digitizing nation states in South and South East Asia, and gathers critical analyses of where the digital, government and power intersect. The papers in this issue emerge from a workshop on Governing Technologies: Exploring Datafied Practices, Imaginaries, and Digital State Assemblages in Asia convened in October 2022 by Monash University and University of Nottingham Malaysia, where the guest editors worked. The papers engaged with a number of questions that animate our current understandings of how technologies govern and are governed: Who are the (human and non-human) actors propelling these initiatives and new arrangements? What do their discourses around these imaginaries reveal about their ambitions, interests and conflicts? What role do communities and the people play in shaping, adapting and resisting digital plans and practices, and who decides? Providing an introduction to this Special Issue, this editorial presents a conversation amongst the three guest editors of the issue, where they reflect on some aspects of governing technologies as they play out in South and South East Asia, setting the stage for further engagement from the authors in this issue.