Call for papers

CALL FOR PAPERS

Politics of Privacy: Linking Apathy and Agency
29-30 November 2022
Nicolaus Copernicus University (Toruń, PL)

The Politics of Privacy-Network invites contributions to an academic workshop on contemporary interdisciplinary privacy research, hosted by the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. As datafication and surveillance transform the everyday and politicize media use, privacy remains a key challenge and research theme. Privacy points to control, self-determination and autonomy in datafied societies. The concept directs scholarly attention to everyday processes of decision-making over media use or hiding and sharing information in contexts where data collection and analysis continues to gain significance. Key questions are how individuals struggle with their basic need to reach control over their privacies. At the same time, researchers address feelings of being trapped in privacy-invasive media relations, in cultures of apathy or surveillance as wells as in the experience of „privacy fatigue”.

The focus on the individual, as situated in manifold social, technological, cultural and political relations, is more than ever subject to innovative and interdisciplinary privacy research. Striving to understand the myriad limits, challenges and potentials of individuals to shape privacies in datafied societies, scholars increasingly ask questions beyond the „classic” privacy paradox paradigm. Insights grow that individuals share or do not share data in varying and manifold ways. Influential recent work shows that technological settings, socio-political contexts or privacy economics play explain how people live their privacies. Scholars have pointed to forms of colloquial encryption or shifting everyday ethics. These in-depth research questions challenge disciplinary borders of privacy research, as social and media scientist and researchers from economics and IT increasingly communicate.

Scholars engaging in the Politics of Privacy-network acknowledge this situatedness and contextuality of privacy and cross-disciplinary dynamics in this ever evolving field. Contributions to the workshop can explores privacy on the individual, relational and societal level. It can be considered as practices, discourses, ideologies, cultures or politics. We look forward to proposals with or theoretical or empirical focus. Both experienced and young scholars are welcome to submit, participate and join the network. Among the issues we want to address during the workshop are:

Theorizing privacy and surveillance: various epistemological approaches and their limitations, definitions, concepts, and methods
Privacy as a subject of policy and systems (national, transnational, alternative) of privacy protection
Old and new challenges to privacy: economies of data harvesting, new regimes of looking, peer (horizontal) surveillance as a new hegemonic cultural norm
Datafied citizenship as a sphere of privacy protection and violation
Privacy and surveillance in discourses of media, politics, and popular culture
“Doing” privacy and its violations: new, emerging media practices, new norms, and cultural imaginaries tied to them
“New normal” and post-pandemic media ecologies: social, political, and cultural dimensions of privacy & surveillance
Privacy and social and political change: the democratic potential of privacy in the context of digital mediatization
Privacy and crisis of political communication

The proposal should contain the following data:

Abstract title
Name and affiliation of the first author (and co-authors if applicable)
Abstract text (maximum 2500 characters with spaces)
Keywords (maximum 5 words)

The proposal should be sent via a registered user account on this website no later than 15.09.2022. The applications submitted within the given deadline will be given the feedback on participation by 30.09.2022.

The workshop combines traditional conference format, inviting keynote speakers, with workshop-oriented discussions on participants’ contributions, having time saved for extensive debate after each presentation. We look forward to face-to-face meetings and discussions in the hospitable spaces of Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland.

How to submit an abstract?

Important dates

Submissions deadline: 15th September 2022
Notification of acceptance: 30th September 2022
Payments (after acceptance): October 2022
Conference date: 29-30th November 2022

Fees

Regular: 100 EUR
Students (incl. PhD candidates): 80 EUR

The organizing team

Barbara Brodzińska-Mirowska (Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń)
Johanna E. Möller (Technische Universität Dresden | TU Dresden)
Jakub Nowak (Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin)
Aleksandra Seklecka (Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń)
Szymon Wigienka (Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń)
Łukasz Wojtkowski (Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń)