Call for papers: Emerging technologies and violence
From the changing conduct of war to terrorism to criminal violence, emerging technologies are often claimed to reconfigure the spatial, temporal, and legal/regulatory dimensions of violence. These technologies span a range of processes, products, and systems that can be categorised as ‘emergent’, from AI/machine learning to robotics, drone technologies and Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS), to missile technologies, and from synthetic biology to coded viruses, ‘stalkerware’, and ransomware. Rather than focus on one prominent set of issues or a given technology, this workshop seeks to identify and deepen connections across purportedly separate domains. This in-person event is intended to foster conversations on connections between developments, and the conceptual and methodological challenges of researching them. Anticipated themes include, but are not limited to:
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AI and resort-to-force decisions;
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Autonomous weapons and algorithmic decision systems;
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Emerging measures of ‘lethality’;
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Horizon-scanning and risk assessment frameworks;
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The relations of technology and speed and their connection to direct, structural, and slow violence;
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Gendered and colonial relations encoded in technology-violence configurations;
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The role of emerging technology in radicalisation;
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The technologization of conflict management, counter-terrorism, surveillance, etc, and;
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Understandings of technology-mediated harm.
We welcome papers on these or other themes at varying stages of development, from outlining initial ideas and empirical research to more mature papers. We intend that the discussions at this symposium serve as the basis for developing a proposal for a special issue of a journal.
The Symposium will take place at Queens University Belfast on Friday 15 January. Attendance is free for BISA members (non-members must pay a fee of £54). We are able to provide SIX bursaries of £150 for PhD students and ECRs, on a reimbursement basis, to contribute to the costs of travel and accommodation. Recipients must be BISA members.
To apply to take part in this symposium, please email isetwg.group@bisa.ac.uk with a title and 150-word abstract by Monday 23 November 2026.
Information on travel to Belfast and QUB
Getting to Belfast | Study | Queen's University Belfast
Information on accommodation options in Belfast:
innbelfast | Budget Hotel Belfast City Centre – Book Direct
Photo by Marvin Meyer on Unsplash