Project description
The politics of digital war participation
In the digital age, warfare is no longer confined to physical battlefields. The rise of social media and Web 2.0 has created global war ecologies which intermesh physical and virtual spaces. These war ecologies create a new form of participatory warfare by allowing ordinary people across the world to participate in distant armed conflicts by digital means. The ERC-funded Hashtag-wars project will address the socio-political dynamics that the emerging 'hashtag-wars' unfold beyond the physical war zone. The study will investigate three cases – the war in Myanmar, the Russian-Ukrainian war and the war in Sudan – to better understand how specific societal contexts shape the modalities of remote war participation and how involvement in armed conflicts, in turn, affects remote participants and their countries of residence.
Objective
"The overall objective of #WARS is to achieve an understanding of the interrelationship between warfare and world society in the digital age. ‘Hashtag-wars’ are collective acts of political violence which take place in global crisis ecologies that intermesh the physical and virtual battlefield. Thanks to the Web 2.0 revolution, hashtag-wars give rise to a new mode of participatory warfare as digital technology now enables ordinary people across the world to participate in an armed conflict. Starting from the assumption that war and society constitute each other, the project aims to investigate how participatory warfare configures world society and vice versa. #WARS will fulfil the following theoretical, empirical and socio-political objectives: 1. advance an understanding of the transnational politics of participatory warfare and rethink war agency under the conditions of digital war ecologies; 2. produce knowledge on global conflict socialisation, transnational political activism, and the war experience of remote participants; 3. raise awareness about the seductive and destructive power of participatory warfare and gauge the implications for conflict analysis, prevention, and mediation. These research objectives will be achieved through a multi-perspective screening of war participation in three hashtag-wars: the Myanmar civil war, the Russian-Ukrainian war, and the war in Sudan. By combining digital and traditional methods of social research, #WARS will survey horizontally the interplay between world society, war ecology and war agency and delve vertically into four dimensions through which participatory warfare shapes world society: narratives, aesthetics, actions, and experiences. #WARS will offer a novel perspective on war participation in the digital age that is urgently needed to fathom the risk that the world turns into a fully militarised society."
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been human-validated.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been human-validated.
Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2025-STG
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5006 Bergen
Norway
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