Athina Karatzogianni

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Dr. Athina Karatzogianni = researcher in cyberconflicts and the author of our entry on Cyberconflict

Athina Karatzogianni is Lecturer in Media, Culture and Society, University of Hull, UK and can be contacted at [email protected].


Bio

Dr Athina Karatzogianni has studied international relations, international conflict analysis and her Phd research was was a study of the theoretical significance of the network forms of new technologies on the phenomenology of social protest and resistance and on the formation of identities and differences. It explores the ways in which new network forms of technology overlap with the new network biopolitics of sociopolitical movements, and how this interacts with the arborescent forms of ethnoreligious identity formation and the formation of master-signifiers and constitutive exclusions in relation to such identities. It combines an appreciation of various theoretical developments such as the work of Deleuze and Guattari, social movement theorists, and of critical theorists of conflict who draw on Arquilla and Ronfeldt' s ideas on future conflict and Laclau and Mouffe's antagonistic view of identity-formation, with a detailed empirical investigation of the impact of new technologies on social and political communication in a variety of settings (including the Iraq war protests, the anti-globalisation movement, Chinese cyber-dissidents and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict).

Current research expands these concerns attempting to develop a broader appreciation of the theoretical implications of networked forms of communication and organization and the Cyberconflict agenda. She is exploring the effects of the Internet and of networked organizational forms such as "netwar" for social movements, international relations and theorizing the current situation. Using the theories of Gramsci, Zizek, Deleuze/Guattari, Hardt/Negri and Baudrillard, and developing a theory to account for changes in the nature of war, politics and resistance, with particular reference to foreign policy and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In the Rhizomatic Politics work with Dr. Andrew Robinson (Leverhume Fellow, School of Politics, Nottingham) they are attempting to reinterpret World Systems Theory in line with the research of Foucault and others, reading the world system as an arborescent assemblage and attempting to understand resistance and opposition movements in terms of a combination of networked rhizomes and the assertion of reactive ethnoreligious identities, using a theory informed by Nietzsche to interpret these social movements in terms of the division between active and reactive desire and to theorise the possibility of moving beyond the current situation of permanent "state of exception" (Agamben) through closure of space. Athina is also involved in another project with George Michaelides (Research Fellow, University of Sheffield), where they are investigating the Open Source/Free Software movement in terms of the emergence of gift economies and networked forms of social organization (self-organized and random networks), and how these undermine traditional hierarchical organizational forms.

Publications

Publications include: Karatzogianni, A: The Politics of Cyberconflict, in the series Routledge Research on Information Technology and Society, forthcoming by Routledge, 2006; 'The Politics of Cyberconflict', Journal of Politics, Blackwell, February 2004, vol.24 (1), pp.46-55; 'The Impact of the Internet during the Iraq war on the peace movement, war coverage and war-related cyberattacks', Cultural Technology and Policy Journal, Vol. 1, 2004; 'A Theory for Cyberconflict', Conflict Research Society Journal, forthcoming; Karatzogianni, A and Robinson, A: 'U.S. Foreign Policy: Hegemony, Domination and Rhizomes of Resistance', under review Capital and Class.


Research Update 2007

Current Projects

Cyber Conflict and Global Politics

Karatzogianni, A: (ed.) Cyber Conflict and Global Politics, Routledge Series Military, Strategic and Security Studies, forthcoming 2008 Academics and writers in this field most of the time come from military departments (writing on information warfare), IT, sociology/cultural studies, or communication studies and global politics. A research project such as the one explained above, focuses on the internet, the political and the global. After the introduction and the theoretical and methodological tools of The Politics f Cyberconflict, it is important to provide students with empirical cases of current Cyberconflicts and the theoretical issues that arise for the students of global communications and international politics. This is the first volume of its kind bringing leading experts in the field from different universities across the world presenting their latest work on Cyberconflict, explaining and discussing the current debates in Internet politics in a truly multidimensional way. Contribution to the volume is editorial, but also providing an introduction, a chapter on the Lebanon and Estonia cyberconflicts and a co-authored chapter on leadership emergence using empirical examples from the volume with George Michaelides.

Power, Resistance and Conflict in the Contemporary World


Karatzogianni, A and Robinson, A: Power, Resistance and Conflict in the Contemporary World, Routledge Advanced Series in International Relations and Global Politics, forthcoming 2008

extends the paper “With or Without you: US Foreign Policy: Hegemony, Domination, and Rhizomes of Resistance”, http://andyrobinsontheoryblog.blogspot.com/2004/11/with-or-without-you-foreign-policy.html

sets out to reinterpret World Systems Theory

reads the world system as an arborescent assemblage and attempts to understand resistance and opposition movements in terms of a combination of networked rhizomes and the assertion of reactive ethnoreligious identities.

explores the effects of ICTs, networked organizational forms and the changes in the nature of war, politics and resistance, with particular reference to foreign policy and current global hotspots

focuses on rhizomatic politics and aims to examine such movements in relation to issues including the integration of the world system, the intersection of networks with discourses of identity, and the possibility of social transformation.

Current Research

New Media and Small States

this work carries on work on the politics of cyberconflict through engaging the work of Arjun Appadurai Fear of Small Numbers (2006).

argues first, that established mainstream media and their online equivalents usually support what different theorists call state-like, hierarchical, or vertebrate political forms of organization crucial to state/status quo survival. Second, that independent, alternative or peer-to-peer, networked media, usually support transnational, rhizomatic, cellular networks, such as ethnoreligious and sociopolitical movements or diasporic minorities and dissident networks within.

engages with these questions by looking at online discourses and images produced by the global media, mainstream and independent/grassroots media, official/unofficial websites of small states, wannabe small states, minorities seeking independence and statehood, secessionist movements, individuals and collectivities from these communities.

involves a large amount of data of online representations of Transistria, Kosovo, Abkhazia, Baluchistan, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Ivory Coast, West Papua, the Hmong in Laos and the Caprivi strip in Namibia, and constantly expanding case studies.


Lebanon's Cyberconflict: Reactivating the Geography of Anger

presented at the IERI 23-25 Juillet 2007 UNESCO, Paris

acts as a case studies paper for the small states research

argues that the global political communication of conflict and its dynamics is radically transformed due to the pressure exercised by new communication technologies.

utilizes the cyberconflict model and supports this claim by looking at online discourses and images produced by the global media (CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera English), alternative media, propaganda websites and the bloggosphere.


Emergence of Governance in Networked Movements

examines how organizational structure and governance emerges in networked movements using ICTs.

aims to find parallels between open source communities and other network forms of social organization

exploits complex systems theory to explain the self-organising processes that lead to the manifestation of power and communication in rhizomatic resistance.

adopts a multi-method approach using a critical analysis of online discourse and social network analysis of communication patterns.

expects that a two tier organizational structure can account for effectiveness in mobilization


Press interviews:

France:

http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0,36-924253,0.html

Greece: http://www.enet.gr/online/online_text/c=112,id=78490200


Key Book to Read

Check out Athina's book on Cyberconflict!


More Information