Gender, Feminism and Technology
Posted on | July 15, 2005 |
Women’s Studies in Communication announces a special issue on “Exploring Gender, Feminism and Technology from a Communication Perspective” to appear in September 2006. Across disciplines, studies of technology have been a rich source for understanding women’s experience and for advancing feminist theory. The goal of this special issue is to emphasize the contribution of communication practice and/or theory in exploring this relationship. More specific themes within this general emphasis may include examination of women’s uses of particular technologies, the gendered nature of technology, the effect of technologies (or technological culture and globalization) upon women’s lives, and developing/ critiquing feminist theories of technology. Any type of technology may be considered; although they are welcome, manuscripts need not be limited to communication and information technologies. Manuscripts may by theoretical, empirical, or descriptive. For empirical studies, we welcome the full range of methodologies. All manuscripts must be clearly labelled as submissions intended for this special issue and submitted following standard guidelines described here. All submissions will be blind and peer reviewed. Informal enquiries are welcome and should be directed to WSIC Associate Editor Michele Jackson, jackson@colorado.edu. Submission deadline: February 1, 2006.
Interesting that ‘any type of technology will be considered.’ What is the definition of a technology anyway? I’ve been wondering about this quite a bit lately.
Comments
2 Responses to “Gender, Feminism and Technology”
Leave a Reply
July 15th, 2005 @ 4:59 pm
Me too! And I’ve been marvelling at how people (myself included) can utterly ignore this question within papers that are *about* technology (so, *what* is the paper about?). But then, defining something is often the least interesting thing one can do. So what’s the solution? I don’t know yet. Probably, as with so many things, the answer lies in specificity: which devices, specifically, are we talking about, and why those, and what other things and people are those devices connected to. But this, though probably correct, sounds to me like a vague Actor Network Theory-ish answer, and those make me itch. Another interesting question is: why do people still feel able, in even the smallest, most otherwise modest papers, to talk about “technology,” implying by that term, all of it, or some conceptual category which can speak to *all* of it? What are the conditions which create this confidence? And if we look back at other things which have been in a similarly poor situation (e.g. people feeling able to talk about all women, or all gay people), what are the moments when that voice cracks? What undermines the confidence that allows one to talk about something all at once, and all together?
July 18th, 2005 @ 12:47 pm
Hmm, I don’t think it’s bothered me half as much as you Kris! I guess my impulse is to see technology as arising from techne - from Greek - which basically means an art, a craft, a skill. I don’t think comparing it with the politics of representation that has affected feminism, etc. can really help in this sense because we’re talking about practices, not people: there is no political objective which would require technology to have an inherent meaning as there is for the identity in identity politics - at least in the typical sense that ID politics have been deployed so far. I find the issue of confidence interesting tho because it is precisely through this initial generalisation or unspoken assumption that an emerging scholarly enthusiasm is being framed, and an academic fashion and interest reified. Not that at an individual level each article comprising the journal issue will demonstrate that. The specificity comes in at that point, I guess.