THE QUEST FOR PEACE AND EQUALITY UNDER THE “POSTDIGITAL CONDITION”

Georg Arnhold International Summer Conference (GAISC)
June 2-5, 2025 in Braunschweig, Germany

In the field of media studies, the label ‘postdigital’ has come to denote the inextricable interwovenness of the digital within everyday life and practices. Here, the prefix ‘post’ does not mean that this digitality has become a thing of the past, but rather that the digital is examined in its ‘messy’, entangled contexts of correlations with practically all aspects of our sociopolitical and socioemotional processes, especially in the areas of education and communication. Research on postdigitality has also shed doubt on the long-upheld assumption that digital technology is synonymous with progress, for these media constellations are ambiguous. While innovations in digital media can foster inclusion and multiple perspectives in education, they can also exacerbate already existing inequalities, divisions within societies, and misinformation. Recent events in both the Global North and Global South have shown how peace can be swiftly destabilized by misinformation campaigns or the reproduction of social injustices and systemic violence in training data for artificial intelligence. While in many cases the ‘postdigital condition’ has therefore has rendered education more accessible to certain groups, in other areas it may constitute a threat to sustainable peace.

Taking these complexities as our jumping off point, the Georg Arnhold International Summer Conference 2025 seeks to explore the intersections of the “postdigital condition” and peace/violence, (in)equality and (in)justice in the realm of education, with their significance for pressing contemporary challenges. As the world grapples, for example, with the urgency of the climate crisis and its sociopolitical ramifications, or the implications of AI and equal access to digital technologies, education is once again emerging as a critical factor in promoting resilience and equity. New media formations allow for innovative ways to facilitate discussions in educational contexts around war, migration, and survival, but they are not without their own challenges to peace and equity, raising questions of accessibility and representation. Reflecting on the use of digital media such as large language models, social media, digital educational technologies (e.g. ChatGPT, reels, interactive maps or serious games as tools in educational contexts), we will consider the multiple ways in which they allow learners to engage with questions of peace and justice. By critically examining these and other aspects, the conference aims to challenge and expand the current paradigms of peace education under the ‘postdigital condition’, advocating for inclusive best practices that acknowledge the interconnectedness of global challenges.

This year's Summer Conference will be organized by the Georg Arnhold Program on Education for Sustainable Peace in collaboration with the Leibniz ScienceCampus - Postdigital Participation - Braunschweig at the Leibniz Institute for Educational Media | Georg Eckert Institute (GEI).

We welcome the submission of original contributions that engage with topics related to the theme of the conference: The Quest for Peace and Equality under the “Postdigital Condition”: New Media Formations and Practices in Education.

Abstracts can address – without being limited by – the following considerations:

• Do digital innovations compete with or replace established means, approaches, or practices in the field of peace education?
• How are long-existing inequalities, such as those around race and gender, exacerbated or mitigated under the postdigital condition?
• How does the intertwined nature of the digital and the analog impact upon the decolonizing project within education and academia? How does/might the use, misuse, or non-use of new technologies shift the demarcation lines between the Global North and Global South?
• Close connections have been drawn between climate education and peace education. What role does postdigitality play at the education-related cross-section between climate and peace, and what new potential does it offer?
• How can collaboration between educators, developers, and policymakers be strengthened in order to create equitable educational frameworks that promote sustainability, justice, and peace in our increasingly interconnected world?
• How do new learning technologies enhance learning for refugees, migrants, or for education in emergencies (EiE) and what critical aspects need to be considered in this area?
• “Gaming for Peace?” What roles can serious games, such as historical games, play in fostering an understanding of alternative perspectives on past conflicts and injustices? And what new challenges might they present?
• What misalignments can be identified between the good intentions of educational media or game developers, for example, and local realities ‘on the ground’? Where do digital interventions miss the target?
• What potential does the discussion of investigative platforms such as Forensic Architecture and practices of citizen journalism such as Bellingcat offer for educational contexts in relation to crises, emergencies and climate change?
• To what extent are digital media tools used for predetermined purposes, and to what extent do they support dynamic and novel ways of engagement with knowledge and truth?

Applicants are requested to explain how their proposal addresses the theme of the Summer Conference as outlined above.

The four-day long Summer Conference will bring together early-career scholars, senior researchers, and practitioners from around the world. It will provide an interdisciplinary and international forum that will allow participants to debate and critically reflect upon these key issues, strengthen research connections, and support critical reflection to inform future research and practice.