Digital Forays: Digital Data Gathering & Changing Ways of Knowing I:Witnessing+Proof+Human Rights

Digital Forays in Middle Eastern Studies // A year-long series 2020-2021:

This year long series starts from a simple premise: What does it look like to think, engage, and do research in this digital age?  This is not a call for researchers to simply produce digital outputs - but we live in an ever increasingly digital world. In order to better activate our scholarship, and to grasp the terrain in which our research questions unfold, we must reimagine our methods, modes of collaboration, and how to participate in a quickly changing digital landscape. See full series overview

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DIGITAL DATA GATHERING & CHANGING WAYS OF KNOWING I:
WITNESSING+PROOF+HUMAN RIGHTS

March 4, 2021 / 12:30-2PM (NYC/EST Time) / Zoom signup
 

On the coattails of increasing surveillance are wider digital data gathering capabilities: “open data,” user generated images, cell phone tower pings (to prove presence & proximity to a protest)...etc.  Many of these are used by states and corporations, but on smaller scales, people are harnessing the surfeit of data we produce - and that which surrounds us - in order to make claims and show “proof.”  How are researchers & activists collecting, aggregating, and processing what we digitally capture, as well as the digital shadows that are captured about us? Take for instance a webcam, wikipedia, or photographs of munitions from a rural field in Syria. All allow new scales of involvement and intervention that change the scope of citizen participation - but also alter the definitions of witnessing, proof, and the role of “being there.” In a quickly changing landscape of disinformation, distortion, and “fakes,” how are certain projects compiling information to question: how do we know what we know/prove/remember in this digital age?

Join the Kevorkian Center with Hadi Al Khatib, Samira Koujok, Lorenzo Pezzani, and discussant Jillian York and discussant on March 4, 2021 at 12:30 pm (EST) to think through these questions and discuss together issues of digital platforms and publics. To register please follow the link here or copy and paste the link to your browser: bit.ly/NYUKevoDF34

She works closely with Syrian family associations and civil society organizations to gather evidence and advocate for the rights of missing persons’ families by identifying key community stakeholders and building capacities of local organizations. Samira also develops advocacy campaigns to draw attention to the rule of law and the role of women in the future of Syria. Ultimately, the mission of her work is the adoption of a feminist lens in the investigating of disappearances and promoting of justice in Syria. 

Since 2011, he has been working on Forensic Oceanography, a collaborative project that critically investigates the militarized border regime in the Mediterranean Sea and has co-founded the WatchTheMed platform. Together with several NGOs, scientists, journalists, and activist groups, he has produced maps, videos, installations and human right reports that attempt to document and challenge the ongoing death of migrants at sea. He has held postdoctoral positions in the Department of Politics at the University of York and at the Kent Law School.  His work has been used as evidence in courts of law, published across different media and academic outlets, as well as exhibited and screened internationally. “Agitated Waters: Migration, Borders and Activism in the Wake of the Mediterranean Spring” is the title of his forthcoming monograph, co-authored with Charles Heller and published by Zone Books. 

Accommodation requests related to a disability should be sent to kevorkian.center@nyu.edu by February 25, 2020. A good-faith effort will be made to fulfill requests. A captioned version of this presentation will also be made available within a month to our Youtube page.

Also be advised that this Zoom event will be recorded and made available after the event on our Youtube page.

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