[Air-L] More Than Data: Mixing Methods Summer School of the Collaborative Research Center „Media of Cooperation”

[Pilipets, Elena]

Dear colleagues,



Hopefully of interest to some of you located close to Siegen (Germany):



Mixing Methods Summer School of the Collaborative Research Center „Media of Cooperation”: More Than Data: Positionality and Situatedness in Digital Media Research (18.09-22.09.2023, University of Siegen, on-site event)


Registration is still open! Here are details of the Mixing Methods Summer School<https://www.mediacoop.uni-siegen.de/en/events/more-than-data-summer-school/> “More Than Data: Positionality and Situatedness in Digital Media Research” (organized by the Collaborative Research Center „Media of Cooperation“).


Please register here<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc5LuJJDeWWPn3hRLA1YiuEhMeiersyD5RnvQBbJDBfqwt7Gw/viewform>.

See the updated schedule<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WaIMGGHtNz4Hf_Vz315dwB9TuIgkrQzcL_SWS9qKOQo/edit#heading=h.apvedllq5fr8>.



Situating and positioning oneself as a researcher has a long tradition in feminist and ethnographic methodologies, but how can we rethink the notion of positionality in digital media research when engaging with media through their data? How can we contextualize the data we are working with and acknowledge our own position(s) as researchers? Which voices, perspectives, but also biases do collaborative methods and visualization practices bring about, and how can we reflect them? We suggest that accounting for positionality and situatedness are key aspects of the ethical implications of studying online environments through multimodal data—visual, textual, and numeric.



The one-week summer school organized by the Collaborative Research Center, “Media of Cooperation”, University of Siegen, invites graduate students and postdoc researchers interested in the intersections of digital methodologies, data feminism, (visual) social media, and platforms. Our main theme, “More Than Data: Positionality and Situatedness in Digital Research”, encourages conceptual and methodological discussions that challenge the narratives of ‘impartiality’ through experimentations with situated data analysis and visualization. The summer school is practice-based and brings together conceptual inputs, methodological trainings, and sprinted group projects. Through the integration of ethnographic investigations and digital methods, we explore diverse possibilities for reflection of what positionality means in relation to environments equally co-generated by human and non-human actors. We seek to capture the nuances of subjugated knowledge through context-sensitive approaches, providing a collaborative space for rethinking digitally mediated hierarchies, binaries, and biases.



Participants will have the opportunity to reflect on how different forms of positionality and embodiment can be made visible and critically re-imagined in the process of obtaining, visualizing, and interpreting online-ethnographic and visual platform data. A blend of research practice and critical reflection, the summer school features a keynote by Gabriele Colombo (DensityDesign/Politecnico di Milano) and two practical tracks intended to meet the needs of question-driven positional mapping and ethical data storytelling.


Keynote Gabriele Colombo<https://publicdatalab.org/people/gabriele-colombo/>:

“Unfolding data: lists, catalogues, supercuts and other visual formats for digital research”



Track 1:

Mapping the Misappropriation of Images of Trans Bodies

(with Aikaterini Mniestri)


Track 2:

#letztegeneration meets #klimakleber:

Mapping TikTok Imaginaries of Climate Activism and Climate Change Denial

(with Elena Pilipets<https://www.uni-siegen.de/phil/medienwissenschaft/personal/lehrende/pilipets_elena/?lang=de> and Julia Bee<https://www.uni-siegen.de/phil/medienwissenschaft/personal/lehrende/bee_julia/?lang=de>)



Note that this is an on-site event only; The event is self-catered.

Participation is free.

Please register here<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc5LuJJDeWWPn3hRLA1YiuEhMeiersyD5RnvQBbJDBfqwt7Gw/viewform>.