Engaging Conflicts in a Digital Era (ENCODE)

The ENCODE-research group connects and coordinates research initiatives at UiT that focus on possible, preferable, and probable futures. Specific attention will be directed to implications of technology-uses in such fields as resource extraction (including the extraction of data), education (including focus on AI) and cultural representation, and at the various conflicts that might develop from such applications. ENCODE aims at creating synergies between various networks and initiatives at UiT working on related issues and at facilitating the development of funding applications directed at national and international bodies.

We adopt a wide definition of conflict and focus the field onto future persepctives through the lens of discourses about and uses of technology. As such we invite critical focus on the implications of technology-use and -discourses in a variety of fields and subjects from interdisciplinary vantage points. The role of new network technologies in contemporary warfare, as such, falls equally within the purview of this research group as do studies of the possible, potential, and probable future implications of new extractivist and educational technologies or approaches to the representation and enactment of class or gender in for instance literature, film, games, machinima, or on commercial social media platforms.

A regular research seminar will enable continuous academic exchange on key theoretical and methodological issues, and will provide an opportunity for researchers, as well as PhD and MA students to present and receive feedback on their work.

The hub is coordinated by Holger Pötzsch, UiT Tromsø.

The ENCODE research group has a close cooperation with the CRAFT Research Lab at NFH/BFE coordinated by Melania Borit.