home cooked theory

Technologies of Gender and Labour

This roundtable attracts leading international researchers in new media, gender and work to consolidate research synergies and develop ongoing, large-scale comparative projects.

The objective of the workshop is to share recent international research across industry and university settings highlighting new intersections between gender, technology and labour studies. The workshop will compare different disciplinary approaches from sociology, economics, science and technology studies, design, anthropology, cultural studies and feminist theory. This will provide the foundation to develop methodological frameworks to drive future collaborative research projects between participants.

The second objective is to use the material presented at the roundtable as the basis for a definitive published collection of essays on gender, modernity, technology and labour. The point will be to link feminist discussions of labour theory from an earlier industrial model to present day research in mobile, ambient and intelligent technologies, and the industrial conditions of new information and creative industries.

The further outcome will be to demonstrate the practical relevance of humanities methods in addressing questions of gender and labour equity in an international frame. Digital media technologies and accompanying industries necessarily bring a complex set of conditions that implicate developing and developed countries, professional and manual labour. This provides a new opportunity for cultural theory to address the ethical challenges of a global “knowledge” economy.

The roundtable capitalises on a new generation of scholars trained in humanities fields now working in industry and shaping the design of new technology globally. It shares insights from large-scale cross-cultural research projects developed by major firms such as Intel and Yahoo! for the benefit of local Australian scholars. It is extremely rare to have access to this calibre of exchange to enhance the prospect of applied humanities research.

Matching these presentations with new methodologies developing in academia, the workshop provides an unprecedented opportunity for young Australian researchers to build collaborations that will set international standards in humanities scholarship as well as working at the highest level of industry.

Initial roundtable participants, December 15 2010:

Judy Wajcman (Sociology, LSE)
Melinda Cooper (Sociology, Sydney)
Catherine Waldby (Sociology, Sydney)
Leopoldina Fortunati (Economia, Societa e Territorio, Udine)
Melissa Gregg (Gender & Cultural Studies, Sydney)
Lisa McLaughlin (Mass Communication & Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies, Miami-Ohio)
Rosalind Gill (Cultural, Media and Creative Industries, King’s)
Vicki Mayer (Communication, Tulane)
Justine Humphry (CCR, UWS)
Elaine Swan (Communication & Learning, UTS)
Marian Baird (Work & Organisational Studies, Sydney)
Genevieve Bell (Intel Fellow)
Anne Balsamo (Cinematic Arts, USC)
Larissa Hjorth (Games, RMIT)
Elaine Lally (Creative Digital Practices, UTS)
Zoe Sofoulis (CCR, UWS)
Kat Jungnickel (Cycling Cultures Project, UEL)
Ann Deslandes (Gender & Modernity Group, Sydney)
Elizabeth Churchill (Yahoo!)
Rosemary Pringle