New ZeMKI Working Paper No. 56 published
17. February 2026
The new ZeMKI working paper by Tara B. Smith, entitled “Administered Dehumanization: Absurdity, Automation, and Resistance in We, Brazil, and Robodebt,” is now available.
What is it about?
Theodor Adorno’s concept of the administered world describes a reality in which everything that cannot be reduced to numbers becomes useless, with managers and administrative employees being the true guardians of this world. This article examines how this reduction of humanity to data is portrayed in Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We (1921), Terry Gilliam’s Brazil (1985), and Australia’s Robodebt program (2015–2020). In We, the totalitarian state enforces mechanical precision and suppresses imagination. In Brazil, an absurd bureaucratic error leads to tragedy. Robodebt, which unlawfully used income averages to issue hundreds of thousands of false welfare debts, demonstrates the real harm of automated governance. Together, these case studies show how administrative systems erase individuality, normalize harm, and prioritize cold rationality over human dignity, while also pointing to fragile spaces for resistance and imagination.