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- Convenors:
-
Evelina Liliequist
(Umeå University)
Robert Glenn "Rob" Howard (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
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- Chair:
-
Robert Glenn "Rob" Howard
(University of Wisconsin-Madison)
- Format:
- Panel
- Stream:
- Digital lives
- Location:
- B2.51
- Sessions:
- Friday 9 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Prague
Short Abstract:
Researchers are increasingly subject to risks when working with divisive topics online. From death threats to "doxing," digital landscapes such as anti-gender, anti-science, and populism among many others raise important questions about when and how researchers can or should seek protection.
Long Abstract:
Researchers are increasingly subject to risks when working with divisive topics online. From death threats to "doxing," digital landscapes such as anti-gender, anti-science, and populism among many others raise important questions about when and how researchers can or should seek protection. The ethical practices for protecting research participants is a given part of a research process. But what protocols and strategies are available for researchers?
Studying toxic environments, and/or emotionally and physically heavy subjects could also mean a risk for the researcher. What support is at hand for researchers from their Universities, and from the research community in such situations?
Moreover, contemporary political contexts entail that we live in precarious times - with acts of war, extremism and polarized political discourses imbuing our everyday lives - resulting for some researchers in physical threats and exil. For others in safer places, the question of solidarity and responsibility cannot be ignored.
This panel invites contributions addressing how the complexity of threats to research and researchers can be approached, for instance about research in toxic digital environments, about risks entailed by the online presence of the researcher, about digital precarity of researchers in exil, or threats towards academic freedom. One purpose of the panel is also to gather strategies and resources for protecting researchers such as examples of solidarity and ways of preventing and coping with online abuse and researchers' vulnerability.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 9 June, 2023, -Iryna Stavynska (University of Oregon)
Paper short abstract:
Ukrainian war memes, created in response to the Russian invasion, became not only a popular tool of resistance, but also a place where Ukrainian identity is (re-)defined. This paper explores such war memes (translated from Ukrainian) and considers the challenges that one faces in studying the topic.
Paper long abstract:
How does one navigate something as emotionally overwhelming as war? As one Ukrainian journalist jokingly put it, those Ukrainians that didn’t enlist armed themselves with phones, sharp tongues, and started creating memes about the Russian invasion. Made daily in response to the latest news reports, Ukrainian war memes turned into a way for Ukrainians to collectively grapple with impossible issues, and lift, even if temporarily, one’s spirits despite the uncertainty. This type of folk humor became not only a popular tool of resistance, but also a place where Ukrainian identity was negotiated and (re-)defined. Made by Ukrainians and for Ukrainians, such culturally meaningful jokes are often impossible to understand without a knowledge of Ukrainian language, society, history, and the latest developments in the country. For the same reason, they speak – as no news report can ever do – to everyday Ukrainians’ uncensored reactions to the invasion: what is celebrated and what is mocked and criticized, how does one understand being Ukrainian, and how one finds humor and strength in the face of danger. This paper explores such war memes, translated from Ukrainian, focusing on several recurrent themes pertaining to Ukrainian identity and resistance, as well as the psychological and practical challenges that one faces in studying the topic.
Robert Glenn "Rob" Howard (University of Wisconsin-Madison) Mariya Lesiv (Memorial University)
Paper short abstract:
Precarity entails obligations that the non-precarious does not. Online, individuals can perform, observe, and research folklore from very different subject positions. Performing folklore of violence from positions of precarity changes what is at stake in both the performance and the researcher.
Paper long abstract:
The full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia has generated a surge of violent folklore. It takes many forms. For example, "May you die like dogs!," is a traditional curse now often applied to Russians on social media or "Saint Javelin," a digital image of what appears to be The Virgin Mary cradling an American-made antitank weapon. In these and many other cases, creative expressions emerging from the war in Ukraine today raise ethical and moral questions about the performance of violent folklore. In an age of global connection through social media, individuals can perform the same folklore side by side and yet inhabit very different subject positions. In the present paper, we consider these implications from the positions of Americans watching from afar and Ukrainians caught up in the conflict or involved in its diaspora. We propose that it is important to consider who is performing folklore of violence since a position of precarity changes what is at stake in that performance. Celebratory, mournful, aggressive, or violent themes in everyday cultural expressions are both a result of and can foster actual violence. Being mindful of that, the entailments of violent folklore are different for those put into precarious positions by physical violence. Precarious positions entail obligations that the non-precarious do not. Shaped by histories of both American and Russian vernacular imperialisms, researchers seeking to engage and document violent folklore must remain sensitive to the complex emotional and material outcomes that attend folklore of violence in an age of global connection.
Aynur Ozugurlu (The Arctic University of Norway)
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines the relationship between the theme of 'peace' and the struggle for academic freedom in the case of Academics for Peace in Turkey and focuses on the transformative practices of Peace Academics under the precarious conditions created by the punitive policies of the state.
Paper long abstract:
Over 2000 academics from various universities and abroad in Turkey signed a declaration called “We Will Not Be A Party to This Crime”, criticizing the state for its violence against Kurdish citizens and demanding peace in the resolution of the Kurdish problem. Since January 11, 2016, when the declaration was made public, signatory academics in Turkey have been subjected to a wide variety of pressures, such as detention and arrest, criminal investigations, forced resignation or dismissal, which completely abolished academic freedoms. After the state of emergency declared on July 15, 2016, these punitive practices turned into the expulsion of signatories from universities by decree laws.
However, peace academics also developed a wide variety of solidarity practices in order to maintain their critical academic existence and defend academic freedoms against these oppressive state policies. The most striking and long-lasting example of these collective resistance practices was the establishment of solidarity academies. Solidarity academies have became a means of self-empowering and regaining new spaces of speech and rights in the face of the authoritarian reinforcement of the precariousness created by neoliberal policies in universities over the years. However, these resistences were also open to vulnerabilities as well as new possibilities. The paper examines the opportunities and difficulties of these alternative practices, focusing on collective struggle against precarity. Drawing on the autoethnographic experience of the author as a co-founder of Kocaeli Solidarity Academy and an expelled peace academic, this inquiry aims to contribute to the strengthening and sustainability of the collective struggle.
Evelina Liliequist (Umeå University) Coppélie Cocq (Umeå University)
Paper short abstract:
Online threats are increasingly directed at researchers and can have serious implications for researchers, as well as for universities. In this paper, we explore how online threats are described and illustrated in protocols for dealing with threats and violence at five major Swedish universities.
Paper long abstract:
Online threats are increasingly directed at researchers, in particular, researchers within the humanities, gender studies, Indigenous and minority studies are targeted (Massanari 2018: 5; Yelin & Clancy 2021; Vera-Gray 2017). Also, in greater risk of being victimized, and often with greater implications on an individual level, are researchers who are part of a marginalized group (e.g., female, Indigenous, black, lgbtq). This can have serious implications for individual researchers who are victimized, as well as for universities if researchers in fear of threats or by being victimized, decide to avoid certain research topics (Cocq et al 2022: 196; Vera-Gray 2017; Massanari 2018; Yelin & Clancy 2021).
As we have described elsewhere (Cocq et al 2022: 2022), although “many universities in a Swedish context have established policies to address and deal with explicit harassment, threats or violence, there is still a problematic absence of relevant university policies at many universities as many of these protocols (if existing at all) fail to include online risks and implications of such risks”.
As part of our ambition to identify and meet researchers’ need for protection in digital contexts, in this presentation, we explore how online threats are described and illustrated in protocols for dealing with threats and violence at five major universities in Sweden.