Theorising Digital Afterlife as Techno-Affective Assemblage: On Relationality, Materiality, and the Affective Potential of Data

• Published in: Social sciences (Basel) 2024-04, Vol.13 (4), p.227
• Main Author: Harju, Anu A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Affect (Psychology); assemblage; data; death; Death & dying; digital afterlife; Digital communications; Digital technology; Future life; Material culture; materiality; Psychological aspects; relationality; Social aspects; Social networks
• ISSN: 2076-0760; 2076-0760
• DOI: 10.3390/socsci13040227

In the ongoing academic discussion regarding what happens to our data after we die, how our data are utilised for commercial profit-making purposes, and what kinds of death-related practices our posthumous data figure in, the notion of digital afterlife is attracting increasing attention. While the concept of digital afterlife has been approached in different ways, the main focus remains on the level of individual loss. The emphasis tends to be on the role of posthumous digital artefacts in grief practices and death-related rituals or on data management issues relating to death. Building on a socio-technical view of digital afterlife, this paper offers, as a novel contribution, an understanding of digital afterlife as a techno-affective assemblage. It argues for the necessity of examining technological and social factors as mutually shaping and brings into the discussion of digital afterlife the notions of relationality, materiality, and the affective potential of data. The paper ends with ruminations about digital afterlife as a posthumanist project.