The special issue Algorithmic Governance and the Futures of Social Control invites anthropological and interdisciplinary contributions that investigate the multiple effects as well as unintended and harmful consequences of algorithmic governance and new forms of social sorting, control, and surveillance.

We suggest that the extreme case is not only where the extraordinary story lies—though this may indeed be the case! Perhaps choosing the extreme example means choosing an example of a whole that we cannot yet grasp in its totality—and by choosing such an example we try to conjure up this totality. We also invite papers that explore how extreme examples are used in public discourse more widely: How do people in various ethnographic contexts make sense of the world through such examples?