The Department of Digital Humanities welcomes Dr. Jędrzej Niklas at 5pm on Wednesday 5th February, hosted by Dr Jelena Dzakula. The event will be followed by a drinks reception.

Forests, Data, and State Power: Ecopolitical Futures in the Digital Age

This talk explores how the politics of natural resources and environmental protection are increasingly shaped—and reshaped—by digital technologies. From satellite monitoring to AI systems, the discussion highlights geopolitical tensions over control of forest data, conflicts between priorities of extraction and protection, and how changing ways of seeing forests—through technologies—are reshaping political interventions. Focusing on Poland and the European Union, it examines how state power, once rooted in traditional practices of mapping and cataloguing nature, is being transformed through data-driven governance. By tracing the evolution of state control from historical practices to contemporary technological debates, it unpacks the ecopolitical futures at stake in our rapidly digitizing world.

Speaker's Info:

Dr. Jędrzej Niklas is a socio-legal scholar specializing in the intersection of technology, public institutions, and governance. Currently based at the University of Cambridge, he previously held positions at the London School of Economics and Cardiff University. Between 2022 and 2024, he led DATAFORESTS, a Marie Skłodowska-Curie-funded project examining the role of data technologies in modern forest policy. His research explores how digital systems like AI and big data are transforming state power and public values, integrating critical data studies with socio-legal and governance perspectives.