Welcome to our Special Issue Call for Papers Launch! In this webinar, we will present the Special Issue Call for Papers on Feminist and Queer Approaches to ICT4D, and answer questions from authors who may be interested in submitting a paper to the Special Issue.
Link: https://uio.zoom.us/j/69291918027
Passcode: 102598
We look forward to seeing you on 11 February!
Silvia, Sara, Katherine, Ayushi, Charmaine, Kristin
Call for Papers:
Feminist and Queer Approaches to ICT4D
Paper submission: 30 June 2022
Editor(s)
Sara Vannini, University of Sheffield
s.vannini@sheffield.ac.uk
Silvia Masiero, University of Oslo
silvima@ifi.uio.no
Ayushi Tandon, Mahindra University
ayushi.tandon@mahindrauniversity.edu.in
Charmaine Wellington,
cwellington@sussex.ac.uk
Katherine Wyers, Katherine Wyers
katherwy@ifi.uio.no
Kristin Braa, University of Oslo
kbraa@ifi.uio.no
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many sectors globally to move online. Activities related to work, education, and entertainment have drastically increased their digital presence. The stronger reliance on digital practices, while assisting some, has perpetuated and amplified many of the existing historic inequalities generated by the legacy of colonial, racist, classist and sexist societal structures. Combined with the already ongoing processes of democracy erosion, increased disregard for human rights as it has been, for example, in most countries’ politics towards migrants and the Black Lives Matter protests (Gomes, 2020), disinformation campaigns, and attacks to science, increased isolation and digitization are exacerbating the vulnerability of the most marginalized and oppressed in society (Qureshi, 2021).
Recent evidence has shown how the pandemic has brought especially harmful consequences along gendered lines. First, gender-based violence has increased during the pandemic (IOM, 2020). Second, gender affects the burden of unpaid care work, which has become even more pervasive. Third, given the likelihood to be discriminated against in their professional and personal lives, LGBTQIA+ people have also been found to not having their basic necessities met during the pandemic: they generally have lower-income jobs that do not allow for remote-working, they may be estranged from their family of origins, and they may have trouble accessing gender-affirming healthcare – essential to their health and well-being but often delayed as considered non-essential during the crisis (Katz-Wise, 2020). In the light of adverse digital incorporation (Heeks, 2021), initiatives to help alleviate some of the challenges that communities are facing during these times are likely to be led by care workers, a position that is usually gender-influenced (IOM, 2020; Malcom and Sawani, 2020).
Studies in and beyond the field of ICT4D do recognize the relevance of fighting inequalities, leveraging on ICTs to do so, but also critically analyze their role in perpetrating or dismantling power. Furthermore, issues of gender herein have been mostly treated as a binary category (man vs women) to be incorporated into pre-existing systems designed within existing patriarchal structures of power (Hentschel et al., 2016; Sultana et al., 2018). There is a pressing need for research in the ICT4D field that challenges existing power structures, including adopting a critical and feminist approach to gender (Kumar et al., 2019; Spiel et al., 2019); proposing perspectives that dismantle existing structures of oppression (hooks, 2014); investigating the design of new, disruptive ICTs/IS by vulnerable and marginalized groups (DeVito et al., 2020; Perez, 2019; Webb & Buskens, 2014). We invite papers that tackle these themes through a critical, feminist lens, encouraging decolonial approaches (Ali, 2014; Bidwell et al., 2016).