Master's Student in Religious Studies with an insatiable hunger for knowledge | Main Interests: ancient Greek and Roman religions - Specialization: Greco-Roman Mystery Cult of Isis [still learning]
Studying to become a teacher in History and Religion, and maybe a professor in the future
I've written a 6000-word Bachelor thesis (about Ancestor Worship in Shang and Roman religions)
Obsessed with ancient history
I love to unapologetically yap about my interests
Warning: I have a very sarcastic humor (usually for banter and/or social commentary, no malicious intentions)
I'm also Ace-spec
What to expect from me and my blog:
Love for the Humanities (and Social Sciences)
History & Archaeology content - mostly Ancient History
Appreciation for Indigenous Religious Traditions
My undying love for Academic Literature (& References)
Memes (we like to have some fun here)
Main Interests & (aspiring) Specializations
[still learning]
Ancient Greek Religion
Ancient Roman Religion
keen on specializing in the History of Religion in the Hellenistic and Roman Near East, more specifically on the Greco-Roman Mystery Cult of Isis
I also write long-format texts on Substack and Medium about my field of study, my interests, and various academic topics. Check them out if you're interested!
Here are some of my most recent Substack posts!
A Brief Inquiry
Ritualization and Spatialization of Fu Hao's tomb in the context of Shang Ancestor Cult
Conceptualization of Communication with Ancestors in ancient Shang Religion through the Ritualization of Offerings
A Brief Inquiry in Light of Ovid's Fasti (II. 533-542)
This noble image of a woman brings to mind the philosopher Aristotle's description of commonly held beliefs about the dead: "In addition to believing that those who have ended this life are blessed and happy, we also think that to say anything false or slanderous against them is impious, from our feeling that it is directed against those who have already become our betters and superiors" (Of the Soul, quoted in Plutarch, A Letter to Apollonius 27). Larger than life and seated on a thronelike chair, this figure assumes almost heroic proportions.
Statue of Dionysos leaning on a female figure ("Hope Dionysos")
[Restored by Pacetti, Vincenzo]
Roman copy of Greek original. Adaptation of a Greek work of the 4th century B.C.
Period: Augustan or Julio-Claudian
Date: 27 BCE–68 CE
Dionysos, god of wine and divine intoxication, wears a panther skin over his short chiton and his high sandals with animal heads on the overhanging skin flaps. He stands beside an archaistic female image whose pose and dress imitate those of Greek statues carved in the sixth century B.C. It is difficult to know whether the original Greek bronze statue of Dionysos, of which this is a copy, included the female figure. Supports in the form of pillars, herms, and small statues were not uncommon in Classical art, but this figure may have been added to support the outstretched arm and may represent Spes, a Roman personification of Hope, who was commonly shown as an archaistic maiden.
The University of Bamberg in Germany invites you to the 9th international Landscape Archaeology Conference (LAC). 18. - 20. March 2026
[Overview of Program below]
Description
The University of Bamberg invites you to the ninth international Landscape Archaeology Conference (LAC), which will take place between 18-21 March 2026 in the historical city center of Bamberg (Germany). The LAC provides an excellent opportunity for experts and students of different disciplines to discuss new research on past landscapes. Landscape archaeology studies the relationships between human occupation strategies, material culture, and the natural environment in the past. It is essentially interdisciplinary and employs a broad range of approaches and methods from the humanities and the natural sciences. As such, the LAC brings together archaeologists, earth and environmental scientists, cultural scientists, and researchers from neighboring disciplines. The main goal of the conference is to enhance and synthesize our understanding of human-environment interactions in the past, in particular of cultural responses to changing conditions.
The LAC meetings showcase the broad scope of landscape
archaeology research across the globe. These meetings take place every two years under the auspices of the International Association for Landscape Archaeology (IALA). 14 years after the meeting in Berlin (2012), the LAC returns to Germany.
Bamberg’s well-preserved Medieval center with its unique city garden landscape is UNESCO World Heritage. Situated near the spectacular Frankenjura plateau, it became a major cultural, religious, and economic node in Central Europe during the Middle Ages. As such, Bamberg promises to be an excellent base to explore new directions in landscape archaeology – in the city itself, the region of Franconia, and the wider world.
18-March-2026 | Wednesday
19-March-2026 | Thursday
20-March-2026 | Friday
2 | From Point Clouds to Patterns: Machine Learning in Landscape Archaeology
Organizer: Axel Posluschny (Keltenwelt am Glauberg), Susan Curran (The Discovery Programme),
Jürgen Landauer (CAA Germany), Simon Maddison (Institute of Archaeology, UCL),
Žiga Kokalj (Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts), Giacomo Fontana (Texas Tech University),
Nejc Čož (Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts), Anthony Corns (The Discovery Programme)
Keywords: Archaeological landscapes, Machine Learning, Remote sensing data
3 | Side effects from the construction of large linear infrastructure projects in Europe – chances for new insights on our landscapes
Organizer: Florian Hirsch (Brandenburgische TU Cottbus-Senftenberg),
Holger Schweitzer (CifA – Institute for Archaeologists)
Keywords: Soil landscape, Geoarchaeology, Large linear infrastructure projects
4 | Phenomenology of Vertical Spaces: New perspectives on the archaeology of cliffs, shafts, and chasms
Organizer: Uri Davidovich (Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem),
Micka Ullman (School of Archaeology and Maritime Cultures, University of Haifa)
Keywords: Vertical Landscapes, Liminality, Adaptation, Extreme Archaeology, Cognitive Challenges
5 | Marginal economies or economies on the margins?
Organizer: Agostino Sotgia (University of Groningen), Dario Monti (UC Louvain),
Elena Scarsella (Barcelona Supercomputing Center)
Keywords: Marginal landscape, Economic integration, Resource use in challenging environments, Longue durée, Environmental and social interplay
6 | Coastal landscapes through the ages
Organizer: Pière Leon Frederiks, Kira Raith, Svea Mahlstedt,
Moritz Mennenga (Lower Saxony Institute for Historical Coastal Research)
Keywords: coastal landscape, coastal settlements, sea-level, adaptation, marine trade
7 | Landscapes of change: data, methods, interpretations
Organizer: Ylenia Paciotti (University of Genoa), Carlo Citter (University of Siena)
Keywords: Transitions, Climate Change, Multidisciplinarity, Methods, Human-Environment Interactions
8 | Exploring the Decolonisation Discourse in Mountain Landscapes: Rethinking Margins, Methods, and Meaning-Making
Organizer: Francesca Chelazzi (University of Glasgow / University of Pisa), Kirsten Hopper (Durham University),
Stefania Fiori (Kiel University), Lisa Doro (University of Turin)
Keywords: Mountain Landscapes, Decolonising, Community Engagement
9 | Settlement dynamics in floodplain landscapes
Organizer: Iris Nießen (University of Tübingen / Leipzig University), Martin Offermann (Leipzig University),
Jens Schneeweiß (LEIZA), Johannes Schmidt (Leipzig University / TU Dresden), Alexander Voigt (University of Bamberg)
Format: regular session; oral presentations of 15 minutes
Keywords: Fluvial Landscape Archaeology, Settlement Dynamics, Human–Environment Interaction,
Geomorphological Processes, Fluvial Anthroposphere
10 | Modelling demography through archaeological data: from theoretical approaches to global case studies
Organizer: Michele Abballe (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice), Francesca Chelazzi (University of Glasgow / University of Pisa), Alessio Palmisano (University of Turin), Dan Lawrence (Durham University)
Format: Regular session; oral presentations of 15 minutes
Keywords: archaeological sites, settlement patterns, frequency distributions of radiocarbon dates, archaeodemography, computational archaeology
12 | Abrupt Environmental Change of Human-Environmental Systems in the Sedimentary Records
Organizer: Ayaka Nguyen (University of Tübingen / Landesamt für Denkmalpflege Stuttgart),
Sara Saeidi (Landesamt für Denkmalpflege Stuttgart), Stefan Dreibrodt (Landesamt für Denkmalpflege Stuttgart)
Format: Regular session; oral presentations of 15 minutes; posters
Keywords: Rapid Environmental Change, Human-Environmental Interaction, Palaeoecological Reconstruction, Landscape Archaeology, Biodiversity
13 | Dynamic adaptations on dynamic landforms: Multidisciplinary perspectives on Quaternary populations
Organizer: Parth R. Chauhan (Indian Institute of Science Education and Research) and
Prabhin Sukumaran (Charotar University of Science and Technology)
Format: Regular session; oral presentations of 15 minutes; posters
Keywords: Quaternary Adaptations, Paleoenvironmental Change, Hominin Dispersal, Dynamic Landscapes
14 | Re-discovering Mountainscapes: An interdisciplinary approach to mountainous areas
Organizers: José Abellán Santisteban, Ylenia Paciotti (University of Genoa)
Format: Regular session; oral presentations of 15 minutes; posters
Keywords: Mountain landscape, Interdisciplinary, Landscape dynamics, Multiscalar analysis, Cultural landscapes
15 | Terraced landscapes as longterm socio-ecological archives
Organizers: Ralf Vandam (Free University Brussels), Soetkin Vervust (Free University Brussels),
Axel Cerón González (Free University Brussels), Antony Brown (Arctic University of Norway)
Format: Regular session; oral presentations of 15 minutes; posters
Keywords: Terracing, Land-use history, Soil archives, Paleoenvironmental reconstructions
17 | Living Landscapes: Transdisciplinary Approaches to Heritage and Environment in Pompeii, the Amalfi Coast and beyond
Organizers: Ralf Kilian (University of Bamberg), Dennis Mitschke (University of Bamberg),
Martin Michette (University of Oxford), Suramya Bansal (ACCE), Pia Kastenmeier (Fraunhofer IBP),
Katrin Wilhelm (University of Oxford)
Format: Round table with invited speakers
Keywords: Cultural heritage, Landscape conservation, Environmental change, Capacity building, Pedagogy
18 | Tracing back historical land-use and its legacies: common insights and perspectives of landscape archaeology and historical landscape ecology
Organizers: Sjoerd Kluiving (IALA, Free University Amsterdam), Rebekka Dosche (IALE, University of Genoa),
Nik Petek-Sargeant (IALA, University of Cambridge), Valentina Pescini (IALE, Catalan Institute of Classical Archaeology), Anneli Ekblom (IHOPE, Uppsala University), Paul Lane (University of Cambridge),
Giovanna Pezzi (IALE, University of Bologna), Bennie Shen (University of Cambridge),
Marianna Biró (IALE, HUN-REN Centre for Ecological Research, Budapest),
Matthew Davies (University College London / University of Cambridge)
Format: Round table with keynote; short presentations
Keywords: Human-environment interactions, Long-term processes, Land use legacies, Methods of landscape archaeology
19 | XXL Challenge: new power lines on old remains
Organizers: Jessica Meyer, Burkart Ullrich (Eastern Atlas GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin)
Format: Regular session; oral presentations of 15 minutes; posters
Keywords: power lines, geophysical prospection, big data
20 | The Future of Landscape Archaeology in the Anthropocene
Organizers: Sjoerd Kluiving (Free University Amsterdam),
Pilar Diarte-Blasco (Institute of History, Dept. of Archaeology and Social Processes, Madrid),
Joris Aarts (Free University Amsterdam), Anneli Ekblom (Uppsala University), Wolfgang Alders (New York University),
Thomas Meier (University of Heidelberg), Paul Lane (University of Cambridge)
Format: Round table
Keywords: Future of research and education, Polycrisis and Anthropocene, Community archaeology, Biocultural heritage
21 | Forests as Archives: Interdisciplinary approaches to explore the woodland geoarchaeological record
Organizers: Anna Schneider (BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg), Jens Schneeweiß (LEIZA), Max Grund (University of Kiel),
Oliver Nelle (Landesamt für Denkmalpflege Stuutgart), Koen Deforce (Ghent University)
Format: Regular session; oral presentations of 15 minutes; posters
Keywords: land use legacies, historical forest use, woodland archaeology
22 | Geoarchaeology in Vertical Landscapes – Methods, Potentials, and Emerging Questions
Organizers: Kerstin Kowarik and Valentina Laaha (Austrian Archaeological Institute at the Austrian Academy of Sciences)
Format: Regular session; oral presentations of 15 minutes; posters
Keywords: Mountain Archaeology, Vertical landscapes, Geoarchaeology, Sediments, Multi-Proxy
23 | Geospatial Analysis in Archaeological Heritage Management
Organizers: Stefanie Berg, Philipp Hagdorn and Marc Miltz (Bayerisches Landesamt für Denkmalpflege)
Format: Regular session; oral presentations of 15 minutes; posters
Keywords: Geospatial analysis, Archaeological data, Heritage management, Remote sensing, Preventive protection
24 | Heterarchies in Rural Landscapes. Exploring asymmetric power relations from a diachronic perspective
Organizers: Luigi Pinchetti and Valerie Palmowski (University of Bonn)
Format: Regular session; oral presentations of 15 minutes; posters
Keywords: Power Relations, Settlement Patterns, Spatial Analysis, Rural Agency, Heterarchy
25 | Past and Present Perspectives on Geopolitical Landscapes
Organizers: Eduardo Herrera-Malatesta (University of Bonn), Jesus García-Sánchez (Spanish School of History and Archaeology in Rome (EEHAR-CSIC), David González-Álvarez Institute of Heritage Sciences,
Spanish National Research Council (INCIPIT-CSIC)
Format: Regular session; oral presentations of 15 minutes; posters
Keywords: Geopolitics, Territoriality, Mobility, Decolonization, Resilience
26 | Spatial Approaches to Bronze Age Landscapes in the Mediterranean: Linking Archaeological Theory and Quantitative Methodology
Organizers: Davide Schirru (Musei Nazionali di Cagliari), Matteo Alessi (Sapienza University of Rome),
Alessandro Vanzetti (Sapienza University of Rome), Emily Holt (Cardiff University)
Format: Regular session; oral presentations of 15 minutes; posters
Keywords: GIS, Spatial modelling, Archaeological Theory, Mediterranean
27 | In the grip of resources: Human presence in harsh environments – A case for the concept of the “resource-scape”?
Organizers: Aydin Abar (University of Innsbruck),
Elena Silvestri (Soprintendenza per I beni e le attività culturali, Provincia Trento)
Format: Regular session; oral presentations of 15 minutes; posters
Keywords: resources, resource-scape, harsh environments, mountain archaeology, resource archaeology
28 | Landscape Archaeology of Riverine Environments
Organizers: Markus Fuchs (University of Giessen), Hans von Suchodoletz (University of Jena / University of Leipzig),
Christian Tinapp (University of Leipzig / Saxony Archaeological Heritage Office)
Format: Regular session; oral presentations of 15 minutes; posters
Keywords: Fluvial Environments, Floodplains, River catchments, Slope-floodplain coupling, Geoarchives
29 | Landscapes on the Border: (Public-) Archaeological Perspectives on Boundaries and Marginal Spaces
Organizers: Viviane Diederich (University of Bamberg), Michael Preusz (University of West Bohemia in Pilsen)
Format: Regular session; oral presentations of 15 minutes; posters
Keywords: boundary, archaeology, landscape, space, material culture, public archaeology
30 | Manipulated and artificial bodies of water as archaeological landscape relics
Organizers: Andreas Vött (University of Mainz), Thomas Becker (Hessian State Office for Monuments and Sites)
Format: Regular session; oral presentations of 15 minutes; posters
Keywords: Manipulated Water Bodies, Archaeology, Geoarchaeology, Landscape Relics
31 | What is the future of surface survey? Rethinking new and old methods for landscape archaeology
Organizers: Enrico Giorgi (University of Bologna), Federica Carbotti,
Giacomo Sigismondo (University of Bologna, University of Salento), Veronica Castignani (University of Catania),
Francesca D’Ambola (Sapienza University of Rome)
Format: Regular session; oral presentations of 15 minutes; posters
Keywords: remote sensing; landscape archaeology; field-walking; historical imagery
Period: Roman Empire
Date: 1st Century CE
Location: Egypt
Terracotta group of Isis nursing Harpocrates.
The group shows Isis offering her breast to her son, Harpocrates, who seems uninterested. Isis wears her usual knotted costume, which has been unbuttoned to expose the breast. Her long, corkscrew locks fall on to her shoulders. Harpocrates has a full head of hair and is wrapped in a cloak.
A hole bored into the upper part of Isis' head is perhaps for a separately made crown, now missing. The fabric is a micaceous orange-brown Nile silt. There are minute traces of a white coating on the front. The back is unworked.
Sîrbu et al. [+15]
Published: 23-March-2020 | Updated: 21-May-2021
International Journal of Data Science and Analytics, 11(4), 341–360.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41060-020-00213-5
Open Access
How can big data help to understand the migration phenomenon? In this paper, we try to answer this question through an analysis of various p
Abstract
How can big data help to understand the migration phenomenon? In this paper, we try to answer this question through an analysis of various phases of migration, comparing traditional and novel data sources and models at each phase. We concentrate on three phases of migration, at each phase describing the state of the art and recent developments and ideas. The first phase includes the journey, and we study migration flows and stocks, providing examples where big data can have an impact. The second phase discusses the stay, i.e. migrant integration in the destination country. We explore various data sets and models that can be used to quantify and understand migrant integration, with the final aim of providing the basis for the construction of a novel multi-level integration index. The last phase is related to the effects of migration on the source countries and the return of migrants.
1 | Introduction
The phenomenon of human migration has been a constant of human history, from the earliest ages until now. As such, the study of migration spans various research fields, including anthropology, sociology, economics, statistics and more recently physics and computer science. We are at a moment where various types of data not typically used to study migration are becoming increasingly available. These include so-called social big data: digital traces of humans generated by using mobile phones, online services, online social networks (OSNs), devices within the internet of things. At the same time, new technologies are able to extract valuable information from these large data sets. Both traditional and novel models and data are currently being employed to understand different questions on migration, including monitoring migration flows and the economic and cultural effects on the migrants and also on the source and destination communities. In this paper, we provide a survey of existing approaches, both traditional and data-rich, and we propose new methods and data sets that could contribute significantly to the study of human migration. We concentrate on three different phases of migration: the journey—analysing migration flows and stocks; the stay—studying migrant integration and changes in the communities involved; the return—the study of migrants returning to the origin country.
1.1 The journey
At the moment, information about migration flows and stocks comes from official statistics obtained either from national censuses or from the population registries. Given that migration intrinsically involves various nations, data are often inconsistent across databases and offer poor time resolution. With the availability of social big data, we believe it should be possible to estimate flows and stocks from available data in real time, by building models that map observed measures extracted from these unconventional data sources to official data, i.e. now-casting stocks and flows. We also look at migration phenomena within smaller communities, such as scientific migration, where even prediction of migration events can be possible. An important step in understanding migration flows is suitable visualization, which we also explore.
1.2 The stay
Migration might generate cultural changes with both long- and short-term effects on the local and incoming population. Migrant integration is generally measured through indicators related to the labour market, economic status or social ties. Again, these statistics are available with low resolution and not for all countries. A new direction is that of observing integration and perception on migration through big data. For instance, OSN sentiment analysis specific to immigration topics can allow us to evaluate perception of immigration. Analysis of retail data can enable us to understand whether immigrants are integrated economically but also whether they change their habits during their stay. Scientific data can help us understand how migration benefits both the host countries and the migrants themselves. Through these data, we can derive novel integration indices that take into account the traces of human activity observed.
1.3 The return
Besides effects on the receiving communities, the source communities may also see effects of migration. In fact, migrants can maintain a strong attachment to their home countries and eventually return there. This can bring multiple benefits: economic growth, new skills, entrepreneurship, better healthcare, different participation in governance issues and many others. We discuss various approaches to analysing these cases based on existing data.
Both traditional and new methods to analyse migration depend highly on the availability of data. Hence, infrastructures that can catalogue the various data sets and make them available to the community, ensuring privacy and ethical use, are very useful. At the same time, with new methods being developed, means of facilitating their use by the research community are necessary. An example of framework that aims to achieve these requirements is the SoBigData infrastructure [78] (www.sobigdata.eu). This includes a catalogue of methods, data sets and training material, grouped in so-called exploratories. Virtual research environments allow users to use some of the data and methods directly in the SoBigData engine. The exploratory on migration studies includes many of the methods and data sets presented below.
The rest of the paper is organised as follows: The study of migration flows and stocks is discussed in Sect. 2. This compares traditional data (Sect. 2.1) with social big data (Sect. 2.2) including scientific migration (Sect. 2.2.1), providing also a review of tools for visualization of migration data (Sect. 2.3). Section 3 concentrates on migrant integration and perception of migration. We start by looking at approaches based on traditional data sources (Sect. 3.1) and move on to social big data including retail data (Sect. 3.2.1), mobile data (Sect. 3.2.2), language and sentiment in OSNs (Sects. 3.2.3 and 3.2.4), ego networks (Sect. 3.2.5). The return of migrants is discussed in Sect. 4, while Sect. 5 concludes the paper with a summary and a discussion on ethical issues.
5 | Discussion and Conclusions
We have discussed three lines of research where social big data can complement existing approaches to provide small area and high-time resolution methods for analysis of migration. In terms of estimating flows and stocks, some research already exists trying to use social big data to now-cast immigration. However, models still need to be refined and validated. An important issue here is that a proper gold standard does not exist: exact current immigration rates are unknown, and those in the past can be noisy, so validation of now-casting models is not straightforward. Finding the relations between policies and immigration could be a step forward in finding means to validate model output. Another big data type that has not been included here and that can help make predictions in terms of migration related to climate is satellite data. To measure migrant integration, we believe that several new data types can be used to introduce novel integration indices, based on retail consumer behaviour, mobile data, OSN language, sentiment and network analysis. Research in this direction is slightly less developed, mostly due to low availability of ready-to-use data sets. Our consortium is making steps in this direction, using existing data sets, participating to data challenges or collecting new data. For the return of migrants, again research is limited, although potential exists in data such as retail, mobile or OSN.
In all three dimensions, research has to carefully consider the issues with the data that is being used. It is important that each study includes a well-planned data collection phase where available data are analysed to identify gaps and to devise strategies to fill the gaps by integrating other types of data. This in order to ensure that the problem being studied is thoroughly covered by the data used. In this process, research infrastructures such as SoBigData can be of great help. On the one hand, they can provide means to catalogue data, so that new data sets are available to the community for integration. On the other hand, they enable the community to share methods and experiences so that gaps identified and the solutions taken to fill these gaps can be reused. This applies not only to traditional data sources, but also to social big data. The complexity of digital demography implies that there is no free lunch with digital traces either [106]. One problem relates to the representativeness of the collected samples. For example, Facebook and Twitter penetration rates are different worldwide and tend to be different depending on the considered age of users [184]. Being unable to track specific categories of users can steer policies on migration in a direction that unwillingly perpetuates discriminations or neglects the needs of the invisible groups. For the above reasons, analytical and technical challenges to extract meaning from this kind of data, in synergy with more traditional data sources, remain an open and very important research area, with some recent efforts made in this direction [93]. Model validation using existing statistics and the relation to migration policies is important. Furthermore, careful data integration could help in overcoming some of the selection bias, resulting in novel, multi-level indices based on big data.
A different issue is that related to the ethics dimension of processing personal data, including sensitive personal data, describing human individuals and activities. As also stated in [187], the first rule that a researcher must follow is to acknowledge that data are people and can do harm. In particular, the context of migration is very sensitive to this problem, since individuals described in the data are often particularly vulnerable: refugees and their families might be persecuted in their home countries, so avoiding their re-identification is a critical matter. Moreover, mass media and social media impact our society and integration itself since a negative tone systematically relates to lower acceptance rates of asylum practices [102], so extreme care has to be taken in publishing results. Nevertheless, migration studies can have a significant impact to improve our society and to help the inclusion process of migrants; thus, encouraging data sharing is one of our main goals for achieving public good.
For all these reasons, it is essential that legal requirements and constraints are complemented by a solid understanding of ethical and legal views and values such as privacy and data protection, composing an actual ethical and legal framework. To this end, a number of infrastructural, organizational and methodological principles have been developed by the SoBigData Project, in order to establish a Responsible Research Infrastructure, allowing users to make full use of the functionalities and capabilities that big data can offer to help us solve our problems, while at the same time allowing them to respect fundamental rights and accommodate shared values, such as privacy, security, safety, fairness, equality, human dignity and autonomy [66]. In particular, we strongly rely on Value Sensitive Design and Privacy-by-Design methodologies, in order to develop privacy-enhancing technologies, privacy-aware social data mining processes and privacy risk assessment methodologies. These methods are developed mainly in the fields of mobility data (such as GPS trajectories), mobile and retail data, which are some of the (unconventional) big data used in our migration studies. Moreover, some other general tools have been implemented to assist researchers in their activities, create a new class of responsible data scientists and inform the data subjects and the society about our work and our goals, such as an online course, ethics briefs and public information documents.
By Cplakidas -CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3623077
Within the Roman Empire, chariot racing had 'well-developed associations known as demes, which supported the different factions (or teams) to which competitors…belonged', which began as four major factions that wore different colors of uniforms—'the Blues (Veneti), the Greens (Prasini), the Reds (Russati), and the whites (Albati)'—with the Blues and the Greens being the most prominent during the 6th century CE, to the point where they were 'the only teams with any influence'. When Emperor Justinian I, who reigned from 527-565, first took the throne, he supported the Blues, but then came to take a 'more neutral stance as he looked to limit the power of the factions', which caused them to unite, with his 'previous ardent support of the Blues [making] him seem biased and contributed to his waning control of the capital of the capital leading up to 532. Each demes, or suburb, 'combined aspects of street-gangs with taking positions on claimants to the throne' and tried to influence the emperor by yelling their demands between races. The emperor could use the demes to gain support for his actions.
Justinian and those officials closest to him, including John the Cappadocian, a praetorian prefect of the East, a patrician—a member of the ruling class, and consul ordinarius, and Tribonian, a jurist and advisor, were quite unpopular due to the high tax rate and there were allegations of corruption against John and Tribonian, and John was particularly harsh in his treatment of debtors. While there were allegations against John, Justinian and John worked to reduce corruption within the civil service, thus reducing spending. These reforms were unpopular with the senatorial elites, who benefited from obscure laws to get around punishments and taxes, who were being made to pay more taxes by John's reforms, which likely led to their involvement in the riots.
Justinian also took steps to reduce the power that the Blues and the Greens had within the city, which the Greens took as oppression, similar to how the elites took John's tax reforms, and the Blues saw as betrayal. With the view of laws as being 'a marker that distinguished the civilized Romans from "barbarians"', it was a religiously important thing for a ruler to implement 'significant legal reforms…[which] was viewed as lending legitimacy to their reign, while the lack of progress in this area was interpreted as a sign of divine displeasure'. Justinian took it up to compile the laws, something that Theodosius II undertook in 429 and took 9 years, and Justinian did in 13 months. Legal reforms slowed significantly leading up to the riots, especially as there was an unsuccessful war against the Persian Empire happening at the time after early wins in 530.
In 531, city prefect Eudaimon arrested some members of the Blues and Greens 'in connection with deaths during rioting after a chariot race'. These riots 'were not unknown at chariot races, similar to football hooliganism that occasionally erupts after association football matches in modern times, but with devastations such as arson and murder'. On 10 January 532, two of the condemned, a Blue and a Green, were to be executed by hanging, but the scaffolding broke. The monks of St Conon took the two to St Laurence church where the prefect then put them under surveillance.
While the exact timing of the riots is difficult to ascertain, the early days of the riots began as an 'extreme show of typical factional vandalism and hooliganism that was exacerbated by the emotional response of the escaped Blue and Green criminals, with the aim to have the arrested rioters released'. This was not the first time that these two joined forces, though they were 'more "conservative in nature"', pushing for accountability of the emperor at the time and expressing the will of the people. During the Nika riots, however, 'the populace was not mollified by Justinian's empty promises of change and were likely fueled by opportunistic senatorial intervention to shift the focus to Justinian's deposition', with extensive militarization when Justinian banned the throwing of stones in 527 in an anti-rioting decree.
On 13 January, an already angry crowd arrived at the Hippodrome for races, which was next to the palace complex, allowing Justinian to 'preside over the races from the safety of his box in the palace. By the end of the day, the partisan chants had become 'Nίκα' ('Nika', which could mean 'win' 'victory' or 'conquor') and the crowds began assaulting the palace. Fires destroyed much of the city, including the Hagia Sophia, which was later rebuilt.
Likely on 14 January, rather than dealing with the political unrest, Justinian offered more races and games, which the crowd ignored and was counter to what previous emperors had done. The rioters demanded that John the Cappadocian and Tribonian be dismissed. Justinian apologized and said he'd accept their demands, but the crowd refused both and declared a new emperor in Hypatius, nephew of Anastasius I, the former emperor.
Theodora, Justinian's wife, dissuaded him from leaving Constantinople by saying 'Those who have worn the crown should never survive its loss. Never will I see the day when I am not saluted as empress' even though there was a sea route for them to take, adding that 'Royalty is a fine burial shroud' or '[the royal colour] Purple makes a fine winding sheet'. Justinian had the eunuch Narses enter the Hippodrome alone with a bag of gold to distribute. He went to the Blues section, reminding them of Justinian's favor of them, and distributed the gold there. The Blues the pulled away from Hypatius' coronation, allowing the Generals Belisarius and Mundus to capture Hypatius and 'kill any remaining people indiscriminately, whether they were Blues or Greens' respectively.
Around 30,000 were killed due to the chaos of the riots themselves and due to the soldiers' actions according to Procopius of Caesarea, a Greek scholar and historian. Hypatius was executed and the senators who pushed the riots were exiled for their parts. Justinian also confiscated their property. John the Cappadocian and Tribonian were reinstated to their positions. Later, Hypatius' children received his lands and titles.
The concept of assemblage plays a crucial role in the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. In a 1980 interview with Catherine Clément, Deleuze describes their invention of the concept of the assemblage as the “general logic” at work in A Thousand Plateaus. However, despite its thirty years of influence on political theory, this “general logic of the assemblage” still remains obscured by the fact that Deleuze and Guattari never formalized it as a theory per se, but largely used it ad hoc throughout their work. This fact continues to pose problems for theorists today who wish to deploy something like a theory of assemblages, but also admit, as Manuel DeLanda does, that Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of the assemblage “hardly amounts to a fully fledged theory” (DeLanda 3). This position allows DeLanda to relegate “Deleuzian hermeneutics” to the footnotes and focus on developing his own “neo-assemblage” theory, “not strictly speaking Deleuze’s own” (DeLanda 4).
However, for those who want to know what Deleuze and Guattari’s assemblage theory is, DeLanda’s answer is not quite satisfying. Thus in order to render Deleuze and Guattari’s general logic of assemblages more accessible for political theorists today as part of the current special issue of SubStance, this paper develops a formalization of their theory of assemblages invented in A Thousand Plateaus and What is Philosophy? The thesis of this paper is that, contra DeLanda, Deleuze and Guattari do in fact have a fully fledged theory of assemblages.
At present and to my knowledge, this is the first full-length journal article to focus exclusively on Deleuze and Guattari’s formal theory of assemblages. By concentrating on the structure of the theory apart from any specific kind of assemblage or application of assemblage theory such as linguistic, sociological, biological, or geological, this paper shows, in a relatively brief manner, the core formal operations shared by all kinds of assemblages and to clarify in what precise sense all assemblages are political. Elsewhere I have shown at length how this general logic of assemblages can be used as a method of concrete political analysis,1 but the focus of this paper is to show the theory behind the analysis. In short, this essay does for the concept of the assemblage what Deleuze and Giorgio Agamben did for Foucault in their essay “What is a Dispositif?”: it extracts [End Page 21] from a large body of work the core formal features of its operative methodology or logic.
