CALL FOR PAPERS

AWL-SSH THIRD ANNUAL SYMPOSIUM 2023 

on

Democracy in the Times of Digital Transformations

9 - 10 November 2023

Digital technologies have influenced our lives, individually and as a collective agency. We have experienced a marked presence of digital technologies in the last few years and there is an urgent need to critically evaluate and understand how new technologies affect democratic societies. While the digital technologies have facilitated faster connectivity and information dissemination, bringing together multiple people across the globe to act, share their opinion, and even decide on issues online, it has also led to a deepening of economic, political, and social polarization. 

With the influx of social media platforms, big data analysis, artificial intelligence, it has become pertinent that we question the ethical and political dimensions of technology especially as they all contribute to both creating and controlling the public sphere of communication, knowledge production, and more broadly the institutions essential for the functioning of democracy in the contemporary world.

In this CFP, we emphasize on these intersections of digital technology and democratic institutions and norms. Even though the effects might seem obvious to anyone, scholars need to empirically map and conceptually engage with the multiple crises surrounding the idea of democracy. 

These include the deepening of political polarization, an ethos of distrust, trends that indicate accelerated populism and over and above the growing social inequalities. 

The AWL-SSH symposium aims to address these issues head on, and invites papers that explore how digital technology requires us to rethink the ethical and conceptual frameworks for categorizing certain features of contemporary politics, ethics, and values as democratic. Papers can also consider the normative aspects including the problem of ‘Post-truth’ regimes and the ways in which citizens are becoming vulnerable to fake news and misinformation, and the ways in which these trends are disrupting the public space is essential democracy. 

Our intention, as scholars of humanities research is also to understand how democracy can facilitate public awareness and conversations about digital technologies. This is the 3rd annual symposium hosted under the AWL-SSH series and as in the past we aim to address the larger societal, ethical, political, and technological context in which the digital is embedded, while also paying attention to the way in which digital space opens up new possibilities and challenges for the deepening of democratic ethos in contemporary societies.

Issues that might be discussed include (but are not limited to):

Digital Public Sphere and the Notion of Democracy

Digital and the Political

Digital Inaccessibility

Ethics of the Digital Governance in Democracy

Digital Surveillance and the question of privacy

The Digital and Dissent

Questioning Big data and inroads to Democratic societies

Post-truth and Democracy in Digital Era

The symposium will be held at the SSH dept, Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, Delhi (IIIT-D), India with an option of joining virtually. You are requested to indicate your preference of joining in-person or virtually in the email body.  

Those interested in participating are invited to submit a 500 word abstract for a 30-minute slot (20 minutes presentation and 10 minutes discussion) by July 15, 2023. Notification of acceptance will be sent out by 30 July 2023. Please send your proposal as an attachment prepared for blind review to awl@iiitd.ac.in.