Cyberconflicts

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Dr. Athina Karatzogianni = researcher in cyberconflicts


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.


Key Book to Read

Check out Athina's book on Cyberconflict!