ISA TOPIC 2019 - The network and the "trilogy" of identity

The project aims to study the impact of digital technologies - and the resulting large-scale production, sharing and dissemination of data, opinions and information - on the concept of identity, from the perspective of both the right to personal identity, as the individual's claim to be perceived for what he or she believes he or she is based on his or her experience and beliefs, and cultural identity, i.e. the expectation of recognition emerging from individuals and groups belonging to minority cultures, and political identity, i.e. the collective perception that a given society possesses of itself in view of the pursuit of general interests.

To investigate this issue, two seminar sessions will be held; within each session there will be three seminars, each one articulated in a presentation by a keynote speaker followed by a debate introduced by a discussant. The names of speakers and discussants will be definitively identified when the project is approved. The preliminary availability of first level Italian and foreign scholars with research experience on the project's topics has been gathered. The papers produced by the speakers and the subsequent speeches will be destined to the publication of a collective volume or a monographic issue in specialized journals.

I Seminar session - Personal identity and digital identity: projections, distortions, responsibilities, rights

This session aims to highlight the individual dimension of the concept of identity and its canons, consolidated and established off-line but now amplified and sometimes distorted in online platforms. Does the projection of the self online, through internet and social media, correspond to the real self? What are the instruments of protection that the legal system provides to ensure the correspondence between the real self and the digital self? What expectations, rights, responsibilities and new protections are materializing in experience and jurisprudence for this "digital self", in its personal and/or commercial dimension?

Seminar titles:

1. In search of the Ego: the concept of identity between digital alignments and misalignments
2. The new protections of the right to personal identity online
3. Freedom without identity? The case of anonymity

II Seminar Session - Identity, Belonging and Citizenship

This session aims to deepen the collective dimension of identity, essentially linked to the concepts of citizenship and participation. The identity expression of a collective self is today amplified by the interaction between individuals and digital platforms, which, on the one hand, seem to accentuate the sense of belonging to collective subjects, such as cultural groups, ethnocentric or national aggregations, political formations, etc., on the other, seem to change the coordinates of the dialectic between individual and democratically legitimized public power. How is collective identity determined today in the new forms of communication? How are old and new citizenship rights realised through the internet, and how do political and cultural conflicts take place? And does the participation that leads the citizen to be the centre of gravity of the administrative system, also thanks to digital technologies, also place him/her at the centre of the political-electoral system? What role do social media play in the formation of consensus and what are the risks linked to possible identity acclaim?

Seminar titles:

1. Cultural identity and digitization of hate propaganda
2. The concept of citizenship in the face of digital public administration
3. Political identity through social media: quality of public discourse and democratic disintermediation

PAST EVENTS:

• 10 February 2022 to 24 February 2022
  A chi appartengono le innovazioni in ambito tecnico-scientifico e il patrimonio culturale? - ISA Topic 2021 "Di chi sono le idee?"