U-KNOW: Understanding International Knowledge Practice and Open Source Images

Visual Open-Source Investigation (OSI) is rapidly becoming one of the most important forms of knowing about international crises and conflicts. Visual OSI practices – knowledge-production techniques using images found online – are increasingly central to media, international courts, human rights and intelligence actors. A strength of visual OSI practice is that it uses images produced in conflict situations, found online and appropriated by OSI investigators, to produce knowledge about conflict, shielding the investigator from the conflict zone and enabling potentially anyone with internet access to produce conflict knowledge. Yet conflict logics shape who gets to produce what knowledge, and how, sometimes positioning open-source investigators in line with dominant states, sometimes in opposition. The project Understanding International Visual Open Source Knowledge Practices (U-KNOW) is the first project to study how open source investigation and conflict logics shape each other.