Cybersecurity and Citizenship: Struggles on the Digital Frontiers of Democracy

During her 12-month research stay at KU Leuven, Professor Bernal intends to continue her work on two research projects: (a) on African migrants in Europe; and (b) cybersecurity and privacy. The underlying question tying both projects together is: “how are digital media transforming the relationships between states and citizens?” For the first project, Professor Bernal plans to carry out ethnographic fieldwork on the political, social and cultural challenges Eritrean citizens in Belgium and elsewhere in Europe are faced with and how these reshape state-citizen interactions. For the second project, data on policies, cybergovernance and surveillance will be collected during ethnographic fieldwork in EU institutions, lobby groups, the Belgian government and European public spheres. Both projects will offer comparative material to data collected earlier in the US and will generate a number of academic papers and chapters and more popular output. Other, more collaborative related projects are described in the annex 'project description and work plan.'

Keywords:cybersecurity

Disciplines:Anthropology