On February 19 and 20, 2026, Juliette Davret participated in a workshop on Boundaries & boundary concepts in/as datafication organised by Yana Boeva, Louis Ravn and Sarah Davies at the University of Amsterdam. This workshop explored how boundary concepts, particularly boundary objects and boundary infrastructures from Science and Technology Studies (STS), need to be reconceptualised in the age of datafication.
The workshop brought together researchers to examine how the concepts of boundary work, infrastructure and objects are being transformed by contemporary datafication processes. The gathering created space for sustained engagement with both theoretical frameworks and empirical case studies that illuminate these transformations.
The workshop unfolded across multiple thematic sessions over two days. The first session, titled “Boundaries, Environment and the Urban”, featured two presentations grounded in case studies of digital tools deployed in urban contexts. These presentations examined how digital technologies reconfigure urban governance and spatial boundaries.
The second session turned attention to “Boundary Concepts, Professional & Science Practice, AI”, presenting three papers that investigated how AI, synthetic data and datafication reshape professional knowledge practices and scientific boundary work. This session examined the changing nature of expertise and authority in data-intensive environments.
The third session of the opening day focused on “Boundary Work and the State”, featuring two presentations that explored how state institutions mobilise and are transformed by boundary-making practices in datafied governance contexts.
The second day opened with a session on “Borders and Identities”, which included three presentations. Among these, Juliette presented her research on data intermediaries and the reconstruct ion of boundaries through labour, territorial and epistemic reconfigurations. Her case study examined planning data flows in Ireland, demonstrating how data intermediaries actively reshape the boundaries between different domains of governance and knowledge.
The workshop concluded with a final session on “Boundary Objects and Infrastructures” featuring three presentations that examined how boundary objects scale up into infrastructures and what analytical and political implications follow from this transformation.
Throughout the two days, the workshop structure allowed extensive time for engaging with each paper presented, as well as for collective theoretical reflection on boundary concepts. The workshop participants identified the need to collectively determine which aspects of boundary concepts in datafication contexts warrant further development.