danni naeil

Category: Education

  • And so it begins

    It’s time fot the big finale: the writing of the master’s thesis!

    Last year I tried to get a scholarship for data collection abroad. Unfortunately I didn’t, mainly because I study political science and not STEM (albeit, if I may say so myself, I study STS – science and technology studies).

    Many attempts were made to contact organizations and academics in Canada. After a while I managed to receive replies from people whom I could interview about mining, Indigenous peoples, land rights and critical minerals. After a video meeting with one person, I decided to pay for the journey to Canada myself.

    Why travel from Sweden to Canada just to interview a few people on these topics? I’ve been wanting to do it for several years. Besides, I didn’t want to read and write. I wanted more than that.

    The same week our course officially started, I traveled to Canada. Thus I could spend time there and get acquainted with the literature necessary for the literary review.

    Partly it felt weird and almost unjustified. I did get much information indeed, about the situation in Canada (and Sweden, since two of them had visited Sweden and written about Fennoscandia), but only during the last interview did we touch on a feasible topics I could write about: resistance to mines in previous mining-friendly municipalities.

  • A visit to Brussels

    A visit to Brussels

    In October our class went to Belgium with the purpose of visiting the European Week of Regions and Cities 2024 during our course on the European Union. We lived in Mechelen, a nice city north of Brussels. EURegionsWeek spans four days. Representatives from regions and cities from all over the EU, as well as academics and lobbyists, gather in Brussels to listen to workshops and panels on various themes, such as youth and democracy, energy and climate, digitisation and artificial intelligence.

    Each of us choose one or two themes, which could align with the assignment. Mine were AI and energy. My assignment focused on the implementation of the AI Act in a Swedish municipality’s social service.

    The most interesting panel discussion focused on the European semiconductor industry, with barely ten attendants, while the most boring panel discussion focused on a members personal interest in climate change (with a personal speech which gave no clue about her actual work for the organization she represented).

    To travel with the teachers was nice. They knew Brussels and EURegionsWeek well. We drank some Belgian beer (goeze) and wandered the streets of Brussels.

  • Evaluating gender among minorities in relation to the CHIPS and Science Act

    Recently we produced three papers during a course on policy analysis, one of which I wrote about the American legislation The CHIPS and Science Act (the CHIPS is the acronym Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors, and divided into to parts, one on chips and one on science), introduced in August of 2022.

    The last two points in the fact sheet from The White House concerns the gap in gender and minorities in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics education)(bold text by me):

    • “… To ensure more people from all backgrounds and all regions and communities around the country, especially people from marginalized, under-served, and under-resourced communities, can benefit from and participate in STEM education and training opportunities, the CHIPS and Science Act authorizes new and expanded investments in STEM education and training from K-12 to community college, undergraduate and graduate education.”

    • “…including new initiatives to support Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and other minority-serving institutions, and other academic institutions providing opportunities to historically-underserved students and communities, primarily through the National Science Foundation (NSF). […] The legislation also gives agencies and institutions the mission and the tools to combat sexual and gender-based harassment in the sciences, a demonstrated barrier to participation in STEM for too many Americans.“

    Furthermore, in the legislation itself, under Section 10321:

    • “The NSF shall issue undergraduate scholarships, postdoctoral awards, and other awards to address STEM workforce gaps, including for programs that recruit, retain, and advance students to a bachelor’s degree in a STEM discipline concurrent with a secondary school diploma.”

    A year later, The White House wrote in another fact sheet:

    • “At least 50 community colleges have already announced new or expanded semiconductor workforce programs.” 
    • “…student applications to full-time jobs posted by semiconductor companies were up 79% in 2022-2023.”

    Could these codified intentions actually mean something for STEM education and the semiconductor industry? Could the number of educations regarding semiconductors increase; the number of women (from minorities) enrolling in STEM education increase; and could the number of women graduating from STEM educations increase? Since this assignment was about evaluation/assessment, both formative and summative, I outlined a proposal on how to actually evaluate these efforts, this intervention in form of a very encompassing law, in which roughly $13 billion was directed towards “R&D and workforce development.”

    With statistics from the NSF, NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology), Department of Energy and Department of Labour I would’ve designed a study to analyse whether the number of women actually increased. In addition to this I’d elaborated interviews, or the possibility for women to record or write a diary, about their experiences, why they chose to continue or stop studying. The study would’ve gathered statistics between 2017 and 2027, in part because graduation will take time when the effects of the legislation came into effect in 2023 at the earliest, and graduates will become a fact in 2025. Feedback from women could contribute to formative changes in the education or the direction of the legislation.

    Designing a study like this has been one of the best moments of the education so far. Partly due to being able to delve deeper into the factual legislation, partly because evaluations (however boring they might sound) can play a useful role in modern bureaucracy.

  • At the parliament

    A couple of weeks ago I visited the Swedish Parliament (Sveriges riksdag) to attend an award ceremony. My supervisor got the School for social sciences at Södertörn University to nominate my bachelor’s thesis for an award issued by the Swedish Parliament.

    It was all rather stiff and confused, with some sloppy organization, except for the award winners, who did well during the seminars. Their respective master’s thesis were discussed by legislators and academics for almost an hour. I especially appreciated Elsa, who did an excellent job of discussing her thesis. For a person who’s coded text several times before, her work is very impressive (we all have our fancies, yes), and she was able to code in Swedish, while writing in English. That takes skill.

    So, I didn’t win obviously, but after listening to the winners I really understand why they were chosen and not me.

  • The debate on refugee espionage

    Refugee espionage, according to Swedish law, is when a person unlawfully, secretly and systematically, over time, gathers information about someone else in order to provide a foreign power this information. It’s been part of Swedish law since the 1940’s and Sweden is one of the few countries to actually prohibit this action.

    There’s research on transnational repression and digital transnational repression, for instance by The Citizen Lab, Marcus Michaelsen, and Siena Anstis and Sophie Barnett. Authoritarian countries spend resources and time to repress diasporas, dissidents and vocal ex-citizens, whether by physically collecting information and threatening them, or by using the Internet.

    How does the Swedish parliament and media debate refugee espionage since 2014, when the law was revised? Does the debate connect refugee espionage to the digital ways of surveilling and repressing people? What does it say about national security and Swedish sovereignty?

    This is my bachelor’s thesis in political science. You can find it here, although it’s only available in Swedish.

  • Thesis proceeding

    The snow is still covering parts of the ground and I’m writing the introduction, purpose and research questions on my bachelor’s thesis in political science. If all goes according to plan, it’ll be complete and presented to the examiner and supervisor in late May and in May-June it’ll be publicly discussed and examined.

    My only obstacle at the moment is the lack of research on digital transnational repression in Sweden and Scandinavia. I have ambiguous feelings about there not being much research, because on the one hand, it feels great to be one of the first students (in Sweden) to write about DTR and refugee espionage, but on the other hand, it’s also rather uncomfortable being one of the very first. The phenomenon needs to be introduced in a careful and simple, rather effortless, way, which is much more difficult than it may seem.

    Two of the articles I refer to and base my own thesis on are Drawing a line: Digital transnational repression against political exiles and host state sovereignty, and Digital Transnational Repression and Host States’ Obligation to Protect Against Human Rights Abuses. In different ways they highlight the obligations of the host state, and the vulnerability of the host state if it seems to lack capacity to protect its’ inhabitants. Too little has been researched here when researchers have focused on human rights and freedom. It’s not bad, but the phenomenon, I think, needs to be perceived as more than simply an abuse of human rights. It’ll never be enough to highlight one dimension of this form of repression.

    The Citizen Lab released their splendid report “Psychological and Emotional Warfare: Digital Transnational Repression in Canada” one year ago, which comprises interviews with people residing in Canada whom been targeted with various forms of DTR. If you’re looking for definitions and concepts, and insights to how it’s like living under digital surveillance and threats, the report is really useful.

  • Time to decide again

    It’s been two years and finally it’s time to study some more. In roughly one month, we’ll begin writing our bachelor thesis. Mine will (unless some pivotal change occurs) be about digital transnational repression in Sweden. There’s isn’t much research on this issue regarding Sweden. There’s scant research internationally too, except for Freedom House, The Citizen Lab and a few researchers specialized in the field, like Marcus Michaelsen. I’m about to dive into their research more thoroughly, choose my material wisely and formulate questions.

  • Reasons and responsibilites to protect personal data

    My essay is finished. The subject was how the Swedish government wrote about personal data in two strategies, namely the so-called Digitalization strategy and the National strategy for cyber security. Who is responsible for protecting personal data and what are the reasons to protect personal data? Is there a gender perspective present?

    Personal data is omnipresent and processed by companies, organizations, state authorities, the health care sector and municipalities. Many times for no reason at all or the collection and use concern personal data that should not be processed. Simultaneously, there’s plenty of stories how personal data is harvested or scraped by actors and there’s virtually no chance to know who holds personal data and where it is.

    Reading Swedish news can weekly tell how information and personal data is lost or abused. Personal data is collected on such a large scale, it’s impossible to protect it. Data brokers, governments, authorities, all are involved in this collection, processing and dissemination. What, then, does the Swedish government write about responsibilities and reasons to protect it?

    Why the gender perspective? The report Malign Creativity: How Gender, Sex and Lies are Weaponized against Women Online was issued earlier 2021. One of the conclusions is that online gendered abuse and misinformation is a national security issue by being directed at women (in this case) systematically, resulting in less public participation from women in a democratic society. Much of the abuse is directed by actors from other countries as well. Another is how women’s personal data can be abused and weaponized against them, for instance spreading conspiracies about sex, national, sexual and gender identity.

    Does personal data relate to national security in the government texts, or more to individual security? Can the loss or abuse of personal data threaten or weaken national security?

    My main conclusions are:

    ·  the Swedish government perceives everyone as responsible for personal data, though the individual has the utmost responsibility for his/her/their personal data

    ·  the government is mainly focused on thwarting crimes like child pornography

    ·  the government doesn’t want to centralize processing of personal data

    ·  too strong a state can threaten personal data and individual security

    ·  there’s a sort of built-in contradiction when the government wants public data more accessible for the creation of services by companies (for instance)

  • Idea accepted

    After many days of straying like a lost dog around the different ideas, I settled on one idea. I managed to narrow it down, from the fields of computational propaganda, information warfare, privacy and surveillance capitalism, to the core of many of them: personal data. What does the Swedish government write about personal data and processing (of personal data)? How does the government write about personal data and security? Is it my responsibility to keep personal data safe and secure, is it the government’s responsibility? And do they apply a gender perspective? What is the perspective on information security?

    May means a lot of writing on this issue. Thus the list of interesting and intriguing books grows longer and longer still. In summer I hope I’ll manage to write a little about some of them.

  • Time to decide

    I’ve reached the point in my education in political science where I have to choose. Choose a subject I wish to pursue. It can be anything. That’s not me however.

    Up until this point I’ve gathered lots of information on many different subjects I find interesting. Some are links to news, some from books, some from websites and some are student or doctoral thesises. All of a sudden I find myself unable to actually choose one subject, one political level and one method to focus on. Perhaps this is me, after all, having too many options.

    The different topics so far concern privacy, both personal and collective; weaponization of social media, especially against women; cybersecurity and feminism; computational propaganda and the nation state or the municipality; knowledge of personal data and GDPR among political parties; information/data wars between nation states; the introduction of 5G and cybersecurity dimensions of 5G on a municipal level; and, finally, the debate (or lack of debate) on surveillance equipment, such as Deep Packet Inspection (DPI), traffic intelligence or bulk intelligence gathering.

    Huh.