Mia Liinason, Chair

My research places itself at the intersection between transnational movements, digital cultures and the epistemology of hope. I am currently working in several research and collaborative projects that broaden and deepen these interests in various ways.

I lead a 5-year interdisciplinary research environment that investigates the importance of digital technologies for civil society engagement, among other things through questions such as how digital platforms change our understanding of places, nations, borders and experiences of belonging? What risks and opportunities accompany the use of digital platforms in the fight for the rights of women and LGBTQ people in authoritarian contexts? What do digital technologies mean for the possibility of shaping political communities, both progressive rights movements and misogynistic, anti-LGBTQ communities? To what extent can algorithms be understood as actors with agency?

I am also the research leader for the projects Liveability at the crossroads of religion, gender and sexuality and Technologies of Struggle. Gender and change in times of transformation. As a researcher in Change is Key! I am part of a 6-year interdisciplinary research program that develops digital tools to explore how languages, societies and cultures have changed over time.

I am a member of the network of excellence NETHATE, a Marie Curie Intensive Training network that brings together an interdisciplinary group of international researchers with the aim of investigating the spread of hate in online and offline forums, counter-strategies, and its impact on victims and relatives.

Recently I finished the project A world in change. A study of gender and sexuality in an emerging global civil society that explored transnational encounters in feminist and LGBTQ activism in Russia, Turkey and Scandinavia. The book Feminist and LGBTI+ Activism across Russia, Scandinavia and Turkey. Transnationalizing Spaces of Resistance, Palgrave Macmillan Springer International Publishing (2022), presents the findings of this project.

I am Young Academy of Sweden's Chair for 2022–2023.