With all of the attention being paid to policies of digital sovereignty, politicians risk giving the concept a reified quality — and in turn, so do those who study it. By turning it into something tangible and measurable, the risks of conflict along territorial lines also become very prominent on our global digital network.
As we spend this week pinning down the concept of digital sovereignty into a concrete ‘object’ of academic study, I will argue that we risk to lose the value of the term. Rather than reifying the nebulous concept into a tangible, measurable object of study, I would argue that we need to rarify the term, that is: make it (even) “less dense and solid”. The richness in understanding the discourses, practices, and norms of digital sovereignty help us understand how policymakers wish us to interact with the digitally-mediated world. As closure, I will support the argument that claims that we need to set out a research agenda that is not discipline creating, but discipline transcending.