Photographic Lives: Intangible cultural heritage and digital accessibility through a photographic audio archive

The project develops a method for the collection and digital accessibility of Sweden’s photographic heritage. Its purpose is twofold. First, it aims to create a methodology for gathering information ab

Evaluated by a robot. An experimental-ethnographic study of the automation of the recruitment process in a Swedish municipality

In a unique project the researchers will study the differences between an AI-based interview robot's and human recruiters' evaluations of jobseekers in a Swedish municipality during a year.

In: Power, Policy and Profit: Corporate Engagement in Politics and Governance. C. Garsten and A. Sörbom. Cheltenham, Edward Elgar: pp. 82-99. Power, Policy and Profit investigates the manifold ways in

Anna Näslund

I am professor of Art History at Stockholm University and researcher at the Institute for Futures Studies. My research focuses on visual culture, picture theory and digitization.  The project Selling Pic traces the genealogy of contemporary AI-generated image hype over 200 years of promoting technologies for the production, reproduction, and circulation of pictures on a mass scale. It aims to understand the historical role of pictures not merely as commodities but as agents of commerce. The project focuses on emerging picture techniques in the 1820s, 1920s, and 2020s, examining iconographic and discursive patterns in pictures of mass reproduction (metapictures) and comparing vernacular picture theories—expressed in advertising copy and trade journalism—with canonical picture theories. Rooted in historical material practices, the project seeks to clarify and expand our understanding of how and why pictures play a central role in the work of selling in modern and contemporary societies.

Selling pictures. Pictorial Economy and Commoditization 1820–2020

This project will place the current discussions concerning AI-generated images in a historical context, comparing it to two previous technological breakthroughs that have affected the use of pictures for commercial purposes. 

Current Sociology, 66(3), pp. 356-372. doi.org/10.1177/0011392116681385  Abstract Although intimacy is an area characterized by great variety and complexity, both popular and academic discourses have tra

The British Journal of Sociology 2019, Volume 70, Issue 2 Abstract Research on privilege and education often focuses on institutions that are elite in a rather traditional way, for example schools that i

Journal of Development Economics 166 (2024) Abstract We investigate the long-run impacts of Christian missions on female genital cutting (FGC) in Africa. Our empirical analysis draws on historical data o

Eyewitness video and human rights practice

This project will study the interplay between eyewitness videos in a digital media landscape and human rights practice.

Organization Studies Abstract Traditionally, CPA scholarship has either assumed away policy intermediaries completely, or depicted them as corporate mouthpieces. Meanwhile, research on policy intermedia