The immersive United Nations: an actor-network theory examination of the UN’s adoption of virtual reality technology for collaboration, advocacy, and training

Thesis

This thesis investigates the adoption of Virtual Reality technology across three United Nations organisations, examining three distinct applications: i) multi-user VR for collaboration (ITC-ILO), ii) cinematic VR for advocacy (UNDP), and iii) VR simulations for training (ILO). These applications correspond to core UN functional roles as global connector (collaboration), knowledge provider (advocacy), and capacity builder (training). Actor-Network Theory (ANT) is employed to trace relations between human and non-human actors and to examine how these relations reconfigure existing practices. The analysis is structured around three research questions. The first investigates how VR adoption impacts operational practices within the three UN organisations studied; the second compares these impacts across cases, examining what the variations reveal about VR’s potential to shape UN work; the third considers the broader implications of VR adoption for the evolution of UN practices in a digitalising international sphere. A qualitative methodology combines interviews with UN practitioners and external stakeholders with first-person observation of VR environments and contextual document analysis, enabling an empirically grounded analysis. Ultimately, I argue that VR operates as a dynamic agent within the networks studied, altering the practices of the organisations studied while simultaneously being influenced by their operational needs. This mutual shaping generates new VR-enabled ‘emerging properties’ (such as social dialogue, focused presence, and interactive engagement), that vary in their degree of transferability. These properties, in turn, reveal how VR reconfigures digital practices in ways that may affect the UN’s core functional roles. Finally, building on these findings, I advance two broader arguments: first, that studying VR adoption highlights the distributed nature of agency in global governance; second, that where VR is adopted, it reconfigures organisational conceptions of space, giving rise to embodied spatialities. In doing so, the thesis contributes to the literature on IOs’ digitalisation and immersive technologies, and extends Science and Technology Studies into International Relations, fostering cross-disciplinary dialogue.

Authors: Liberatore Vaselli, F

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-7jnmabmp1
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: distributed agency; virtual reality; science and technology studies; United Nations; organisational change; immersive technologies; international organisations; global governance; actor-network theory;; embodied spatiality
• Subjects: Shared virtual environments; International agencies; Actor-network theory; International organization; Virtual reality; Organizational change