NYRIS 2026: Nordic Youth Research Symposium

Jessica Ringrose

Theorizing Postdigital Youth-Chatbot Relationalities and Agencies: Towards Critical AI Literacies

In this talk I will theorize youth chatbot interactions as new forms of postdigital and posthuman relationalities, ‘intra-actions’ and co-produced agencies which create new opportunities for connection and learning, while also introducing new forms of risk and harm. The term ‘postdigital’ describes a condition in which digital technologies have become so extensively integrated into social life that the distinction between digital and non-digital domains is increasingly unable to explain how everyday experience is organised (Cramer, 2015; Jandrić et al., 2018). The prefix ‘post’ therefore marks a critical movement beyond treating ‘the digital’ as a novel, autonomous, or purely technical sphere (Jandrić & Knox, 2022). I argue that postdigital marks three shifts: 1. Temporality: We are always now after the digital; 2. Spatiality: There is no offline beyond the digital 3. Intensification: all areas of life are shaped by digitality as well as its lack. Barad’s (2007) theory of posthuman performativity and relational ontology shows us that agency is an enactment – agentic relations emerge from and are mutually constituted through relationalities or "intra-actions” between parts. Technological platforms and users create new material-discursive-affective entanglements of human and non-human relationalities and agencies (Ringrose, Zarabadi and Warfield, 2019; Evans and Ringrose, 2025). Taken together, a postdigital and posthuman approach draws attention to post-covid conditions of context collapse - we no longer exist outside the digital, we are always more than human, and we need new policies and practices capable of addressing the uneven and often mundane entanglement of digital and analogue and human and technological relationalities.

AI chatbots cannot therefore be understood simply as an external influence acting upon an otherwise self-contained child. They are part of the relational postdigital and posthuman conditions through which contemporary childhood is lived and produced. AI chatbots create new forms of intra-action and co-produced agency. To explore these ideas I draw on data from a mixed methods study of nearly 2000 young people’s use of chatbots, I will explore the many ways that youth are engaging with and entangled with chatbots, the roles the chatbots assume in children’s lives, and why these intra-actions create new forms of subjectivity and dependency in the attention and intimacy economies of social media and AI ecosystems (Bozdağ, 2025). For instance, I will explore how anthropomorphism works in chatbot relationalities and is driven by chatbot specific technological affordances like sychophancy and personality types. I will consider the much-discussed risks of ‘cognitive offloading as well as emotional offloading questioning what these processes might mean through a postdigital and posthuman lens and how to understand co-produced agency through a lens of intersectional power relations. Finally, I will bring these theoretical insights into practical conversation with concrete educational recommendations for critically, reflexive and response-able AI literacies in school settings that can address the complex intra-actions and distributed agency of chatbot-human relations, and therefore how to encourage response-able and ethical AI use.

Jessica Ringrose is Professor of Sociology of Gender and Education at Instutute of Education, University College London, and a leading international scholar in feminist approaches to youth studies. Her research explores young people's digital cultures, sexualities, inequalities, and affective practices, most recently in her book Teens, Social Media, and Image Based Abuse (Ringrose & Regehr 2025). She is widely recognized for her innovative theoretical contributions, particularly in developing and advancing feminist new materialisms and posthumanist theory.

Professor Jessica Ringrose

Majsa Allelin

The Production and Reproduction of Life and Loss Among Young People: The Importance of Common Ground When Studying Separate Realities

Contemporary childhood is shaped by deeply unequal social, political, and economic conditions that are increasingly interconnected across global contexts. In line with this perspective, I argue that childhood must be understood through the intersecting dynamics of global violence, neoliberal restructuring, and capitalist social reproduction. In response to these conditions, I advance the concept of common ground as both an analytical framework grounded in Marxist and social reproduction theory and a social political project aimed at renewing and expanding the commons.

Majsa Allelin is Senior Lecturer at Södertörn University. Her research examines how social and economic structures shape learning, schooling, work, and everyday life. Her work focuses on educational inequality, urban segregation, social reproduction, and the marketization of education. Furthermore, Allelin also study welfare state transformation, political economy, and innovation processes, exploring tensions between learning, creativity, organizational demands, and societal change.

Senior Lecturer Majsa Allelin

Hedi Viterbo

Beyond ‘giving voice’: Political, ethical, and conceptual dilemmas surrounding youth voices

How are young people’s voices framed, conceptualised, mediated, and selected? When does their amplification become a form of exploitation? How are these voices instrumentalised by dominant political and economic actors, sometimes in ways that undermine the young people they claim to support? Which voices are heard, which are marginalised or excluded, and what shapes these inequalities? This keynote explores the promises, tensions, and dilemmas surrounding ‘voice’ in youth studies. Drawing on cases involving youth activists, young refugees, and young people affected by armed conflict, it asks what it means to represent, listen to, and act upon young people’s voices.

Hedi Viterbo is Reader in Law at Queen Mary University of London. He has published extensively on the role of legal and political discourses and practices in shaping the lives and representations of young people across a wide range of contexts. His research adopts an interdisciplinary approach to examining these dynamics, including in relation to young people living under colonial rule, youth in conflict with the law, young refugees, and youth activists.

Dr Hedi Viterbo

Anna Gradin Franzén

The seriousness of silliness: On humor and participant’s perspectives in sensitive settings

While humor is often normatively equated with something intrinsically good, critical humor studies have drawn attention to the darker and more troubling dimensions of humor. This talk explores how video ethnography can be used to examine this seriousness of silliness in action and from a participant perspective, drawing on examples of interactions between staff and young people at a secure detention home. Video ethnography is often interpreted as an intrusive method, yet the talk will argue for its analytical and ethical potential, particularly in sensitive and closed settings involving children.

Anna G. Franzén is associate professor at the department of Child and Youth Studies, Stockholm university. Her research includes incarcerated boys, affective practices, subjectivity and humor. Franzén has conducted video-ethnographic research in detention homes, prison and schools and has been published in Language in Society, New Media & Society and Linguistic Journal of Anthropology.

Associate Professor Anna Grandin Franzén

Agnieszka Pasieka

Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork with youth far-right militants active across several European countries, this presentation focuses on a series of interrelated themes. First, it share insights from research with radical movements, focusing especially on young men: their life trajectories, how they conceive of belonging to far-right milieus, and their motivations and aspirations. Next, it address the ethical and methodological challenges this study entailed, foregrounding a central question: how do we understand and explain violent behaviors and exclusionary ideas without excusing or justifying them? Finally, the keynote speaker offer reflections on the public reception of her work and the unique contributions of anthropology within a broader interdisciplinary landscape.

Agnieszka Pasieka is an assistant professor at the Department of Anthropology, University of Montreal. Her work focuses on political mobilization, activism and social movements, and explores how different social actors mobilize to address inequality and power hierarchies and what kind of alternative world they envision. Her new project tackles the problem of far-right environmental politics.

Mag. Dr. Agnieszka Pasieka

Linda Arnell

Powerful Stories. Research With Young Women in a Changing Society

This talk reflects on ethical challenges in youth research on, for, with, and by young women in a rapidly changing society. Drawing on examples from my research, I discuss ethical complexities in researching sensitive and potentially traumatic issues, including experiences of homelessness, violence, abuse, and involvement in criminal gangs. Particular attention is given to participation and researchers’ responsibilities when young people are involved in research processes. Finally, I consider how youth research can respond to changing social conditions while upholding ethical principles and safeguarding young participants’ interests and well-being.

Linda Arnell is an Associate Professor at the Department of Social Work, Umeå University. Her research focuses on youth, gender, violence, and social inequalities, with particular attention to girls in precarious or marginalized positions, including girls’ experiences of violence, abuse, homelessness and criminal gangs.

Associate professor Linda Arnell