Abstract In public discourse, there has been hostile communication between Asian and Black communities in the US. This article proposes co-racialization as a lens in examining Asian and Black Americans’ relationality. Co-racialization occurs in and across space and time, in that individuals and groups with various and uneven resources shape their views of themselves and their counterparts. Seventy-two Asian Americans and Black Americans were interviewed. Through the concepts of “racial project” and “hydraulic and nanoracism,” I trace the ways in which these co-racializations are mediated. Themes of their “home and neighborhood as space of mediation;” “segregated learning institutions with hydraulic racism mediated by pop culture;” and “perpetual tensions and nanoracism in the ‘fuzzy zones’” emerged. This article calls for nanohealing—an intentionally sustained relationality-building rooted in on-the-ground spaces of interactions and mediation—as an imperative part of co-racialization to resist the thin relationality between racial minorities.
{"title":"Cartography of Afro-Asian relations in America: co-racialization and nanohealing","authors":"Hsin-I Cheng","doi":"10.1093/ccc/tcad035","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcad035","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In public discourse, there has been hostile communication between Asian and Black communities in the US. This article proposes co-racialization as a lens in examining Asian and Black Americans’ relationality. Co-racialization occurs in and across space and time, in that individuals and groups with various and uneven resources shape their views of themselves and their counterparts. Seventy-two Asian Americans and Black Americans were interviewed. Through the concepts of “racial project” and “hydraulic and nanoracism,” I trace the ways in which these co-racializations are mediated. Themes of their “home and neighborhood as space of mediation;” “segregated learning institutions with hydraulic racism mediated by pop culture;” and “perpetual tensions and nanoracism in the ‘fuzzy zones’” emerged. This article calls for nanohealing—an intentionally sustained relationality-building rooted in on-the-ground spaces of interactions and mediation—as an imperative part of co-racialization to resist the thin relationality between racial minorities.","PeriodicalId":54193,"journal":{"name":"Communication Culture & Critique","volume":"28 23","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135874897","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This article theorizes about how platform cooperativism is landing in Brazil, challenging dominant notions and presenting a more diverse meaning of worker-owned technologies from below. Drawing on research with platform co-ops under construction in Brazil, the article argues that, in Brazil, platform cooperativism does not necessarily present itself as either a cooperative or a platform. They are prototypes and experiments of worker-owned technologies anchored in local communities and their values. Instead of all these experiences being condensed and captured from Global North epistemic frameworks, there is the production of knowledge by the workers in search of autonomy. The article analyzes potentialities and critiques of platform cooperativism, especially from three dimensions of critique (economics, politics, and technology). It presents perspectives towards diversifying and expanding the meanings of technology in/from Latin America for understanding worker-owned technologies. It discusses two examples of worker-owned technologies: Senoritas Courier and the Homeless Worker Movement.
{"title":"Not just platform, nor cooperatives: worker-owned technologies from below","authors":"Rafael Grohmann","doi":"10.1093/ccc/tcad036","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcad036","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article theorizes about how platform cooperativism is landing in Brazil, challenging dominant notions and presenting a more diverse meaning of worker-owned technologies from below. Drawing on research with platform co-ops under construction in Brazil, the article argues that, in Brazil, platform cooperativism does not necessarily present itself as either a cooperative or a platform. They are prototypes and experiments of worker-owned technologies anchored in local communities and their values. Instead of all these experiences being condensed and captured from Global North epistemic frameworks, there is the production of knowledge by the workers in search of autonomy. The article analyzes potentialities and critiques of platform cooperativism, especially from three dimensions of critique (economics, politics, and technology). It presents perspectives towards diversifying and expanding the meanings of technology in/from Latin America for understanding worker-owned technologies. It discusses two examples of worker-owned technologies: Senoritas Courier and the Homeless Worker Movement.","PeriodicalId":54193,"journal":{"name":"Communication Culture & Critique","volume":"17 2","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135976125","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This article examines cultural beliefs related to reality television and social media, using a museum installation as a point of departure for examining the persistence of particular ideas about taste and aesthetic value as they relate to mass media in a historical moment when audiences are more frequently small and specialized. Its case study is an artwork that creates a data visualization from social media analytics related to American Idol, America’s Got Talent, America’s Next Top Model, and America’s Best Dance Crew. Using discourse analysis, the article unpacks how the installation establishes connections between televised contests, social media activity, and U.S. national identity. The author argues that the installation predicates its critique of reality television and social media on collapsing the differences between disparate programs, animating hierarchies of taste between various publics, and simplifying emergent industry practices related to big data.
{"title":"When mass culture meets high culture: reality television and big data at the art museum","authors":"Hollis Griffin","doi":"10.1093/ccc/tcad034","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcad034","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article examines cultural beliefs related to reality television and social media, using a museum installation as a point of departure for examining the persistence of particular ideas about taste and aesthetic value as they relate to mass media in a historical moment when audiences are more frequently small and specialized. Its case study is an artwork that creates a data visualization from social media analytics related to American Idol, America’s Got Talent, America’s Next Top Model, and America’s Best Dance Crew. Using discourse analysis, the article unpacks how the installation establishes connections between televised contests, social media activity, and U.S. national identity. The author argues that the installation predicates its critique of reality television and social media on collapsing the differences between disparate programs, animating hierarchies of taste between various publics, and simplifying emergent industry practices related to big data.","PeriodicalId":54193,"journal":{"name":"Communication Culture & Critique","volume":"1 7","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135568082","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Existing theories in technology and society studies do not comprehensively address the realities of people of African descent, including factors such as their histories, evolving cultures, and power dynamics. The article addresses this gap by constructing afrofemtrism, a gender justice theory which interrogates gender realities in the context of a society’s peculiar interaction with technological advancements. A salient feature of afrofemtrism’s development is the iterative interaction with empirical data from the Ghana blockchain community wherein participants in this study encountered conflicts and congruity between their information and communications technology (ICT) careers and their deeply traditional but cosmopolitan Global South setting. Ultimately, the study critically investigates digital technologies which present inequitable experiences for women in Ghana.
{"title":"Afrofemtrism: a critical examination of the relationship between gender, technology, and society","authors":"Betty B B Ackah","doi":"10.1093/ccc/tcad032","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcad032","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Existing theories in technology and society studies do not comprehensively address the realities of people of African descent, including factors such as their histories, evolving cultures, and power dynamics. The article addresses this gap by constructing afrofemtrism, a gender justice theory which interrogates gender realities in the context of a society’s peculiar interaction with technological advancements. A salient feature of afrofemtrism’s development is the iterative interaction with empirical data from the Ghana blockchain community wherein participants in this study encountered conflicts and congruity between their information and communications technology (ICT) careers and their deeply traditional but cosmopolitan Global South setting. Ultimately, the study critically investigates digital technologies which present inequitable experiences for women in Ghana.","PeriodicalId":54193,"journal":{"name":"Communication Culture & Critique","volume":"40 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135476988","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This research critiques Western approaches to social media by using an Indigenous theoretical tool/concept, the Moanan (Pacific Islander) conception of tā and vā, to center Indigenous knowledge through an analysis of the Kū Kiaʻi Kahuku community movement (an Indigenous and ecological stand for environmental justice to protect native species and push back against colonial development in the form of giant wind turbines (568 feet high) placed over schools and the homes of community members and Kanaka Maoli in Kahuku, Hawaiʻi). We argue that Kū Kiaʻi Kahuku’s livestreaming inspired movement within the space of digital connectivity, a civic rhythm, forging symmetry and reciprocity within sociospatial ties. Moanan peoples inscribed within social media a distinct Moanan rhythm. In this case, the vibrations of the protecting, an affectively charged tā, engaged the community and diaspora in a moment of rupture—opening up a space for symmetry within the dissymmetry of colonial capitalism.
本研究通过使用土著理论工具/概念,即太平洋岛民的tā和vā概念,对西方社交媒体的方法进行了批评。通过对夏威夷卡胡库社区运动的分析,将土著知识集中起来。卡胡库社区运动是一种土著和生态代表,旨在保护当地物种,并以巨大的风力涡轮机(568英尺高)的形式,在夏威夷卡胡库的社区成员和卡纳卡茂利的学校和家中安装。我们认为kki Kia i Kahuku的直播激发了数字连接空间内的运动,一种公民节奏,在社会空间关系中形成对称和互惠。莫阿南人在社交媒体上留下了独特的莫阿南节奏。在这种情况下,保护的振动,一种充满情感的塔伊,在一个破裂的时刻吸引了社区和侨民——在殖民资本主义的不对称中开辟了一个对称的空间。
{"title":"Kū Kia‘i Kahuku: indigenizing social media, civic streaming, and sociospatial symmetry","authors":"Benjamin Burroughs, Tēvita O Ka‘ili","doi":"10.1093/ccc/tcad029","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcad029","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This research critiques Western approaches to social media by using an Indigenous theoretical tool/concept, the Moanan (Pacific Islander) conception of tā and vā, to center Indigenous knowledge through an analysis of the Kū Kiaʻi Kahuku community movement (an Indigenous and ecological stand for environmental justice to protect native species and push back against colonial development in the form of giant wind turbines (568 feet high) placed over schools and the homes of community members and Kanaka Maoli in Kahuku, Hawaiʻi). We argue that Kū Kiaʻi Kahuku’s livestreaming inspired movement within the space of digital connectivity, a civic rhythm, forging symmetry and reciprocity within sociospatial ties. Moanan peoples inscribed within social media a distinct Moanan rhythm. In this case, the vibrations of the protecting, an affectively charged tā, engaged the community and diaspora in a moment of rupture—opening up a space for symmetry within the dissymmetry of colonial capitalism.","PeriodicalId":54193,"journal":{"name":"Communication Culture & Critique","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136061454","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This article examines the experiences of Black, Indigenous, and/or people of color (BIPOC) assistants in Hollywood, focusing on those who work for above-the-line creatives and executives. I argue that despite Hollywood industry’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, the logics and mechanisms of whiteness remain deeply ingrained in Hollywood’s treatment of entry-level workers. The article is divided into three sections: first, it historicizes post-Civil Rights Hollywood and maps it onto present-day US and Hollywood cultural whiteness; second, it analyzes how Hollywood industry gatekeeps BIPOC assistants using interviews, demographic information, and survey responses; and finally, it considers ways to create more equitable working structures within Hollywood. The article highlights the unpublicized harm behind entertainment media and the need for greater attention to the experiences of BIPOC workers in Hollywood.
{"title":"“No wonder you have a diversity problem”: Hollywood’s systemic gatekeeping against assistants of color","authors":"Kiah E Bennett","doi":"10.1093/ccc/tcad027","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcad027","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article examines the experiences of Black, Indigenous, and/or people of color (BIPOC) assistants in Hollywood, focusing on those who work for above-the-line creatives and executives. I argue that despite Hollywood industry’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, the logics and mechanisms of whiteness remain deeply ingrained in Hollywood’s treatment of entry-level workers. The article is divided into three sections: first, it historicizes post-Civil Rights Hollywood and maps it onto present-day US and Hollywood cultural whiteness; second, it analyzes how Hollywood industry gatekeeps BIPOC assistants using interviews, demographic information, and survey responses; and finally, it considers ways to create more equitable working structures within Hollywood. The article highlights the unpublicized harm behind entertainment media and the need for greater attention to the experiences of BIPOC workers in Hollywood.","PeriodicalId":54193,"journal":{"name":"Communication Culture & Critique","volume":"36 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135258398","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Based on a recent body of scholarship that addresses the epistemologies of the South, our goal is to incite a shift in how we conceptualize technology adoption in the Global South. We interrogate the notion that the role of digital technologies in these regions follows a linear model of progress from traditional lifeways toward industrial modernity. Joining a recent shift toward decolonizing the study of the flow of digital technologies in the Global South, this article calls for a new approach that prioritizes specific historical, cultural, and epistemological contexts in the Global South and acknowledges the fragmentation left behind by colonization and divergent economic policies. We argue that communities appropriate digital communication technologies in complex ways and weave them into their existing ancestral epistemologies.
{"title":"Between incursions and appropriations: digital technologies and pluriversal modernities in the Global South","authors":"Sreedhar Nemmani, Clemencia Rodriguez","doi":"10.1093/ccc/tcad028","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcad028","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Based on a recent body of scholarship that addresses the epistemologies of the South, our goal is to incite a shift in how we conceptualize technology adoption in the Global South. We interrogate the notion that the role of digital technologies in these regions follows a linear model of progress from traditional lifeways toward industrial modernity. Joining a recent shift toward decolonizing the study of the flow of digital technologies in the Global South, this article calls for a new approach that prioritizes specific historical, cultural, and epistemological contexts in the Global South and acknowledges the fragmentation left behind by colonization and divergent economic policies. We argue that communities appropriate digital communication technologies in complex ways and weave them into their existing ancestral epistemologies.","PeriodicalId":54193,"journal":{"name":"Communication Culture & Critique","volume":"3 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135396293","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The mediation of migration has inspired ample scholarship in the past decades for understanding global power dynamics and the role of communication processes in maintaining, questioning, and reverting those very dynamics. This article sheds light on the experiences of migrants and their tactics for creating more humane, inclusive, and authentic media representations. It reports on one year of participatory action research (PAR) with six undocumented migrants living in Brussels, Belgium, which included participatory video-making and a combination of walking interviews and visual artefact production. The findings revolve around three counter-documentation tactics developed during the study to oppose hegemonic ways of representing (undocumented) migrants. The article aims to make a methodological contribution by reflecting on ethics and the pragmatic combination of different participatory methods while offering a conceptual vocabulary for approaching mediation, migration, and alterity from the perspective of progressive social change.
{"title":"Counter-documentation tactics: participatory, visual, and walking research with undocumented migrants","authors":"Kevin Smets, Lisa Ahenkona","doi":"10.1093/ccc/tcad031","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcad031","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The mediation of migration has inspired ample scholarship in the past decades for understanding global power dynamics and the role of communication processes in maintaining, questioning, and reverting those very dynamics. This article sheds light on the experiences of migrants and their tactics for creating more humane, inclusive, and authentic media representations. It reports on one year of participatory action research (PAR) with six undocumented migrants living in Brussels, Belgium, which included participatory video-making and a combination of walking interviews and visual artefact production. The findings revolve around three counter-documentation tactics developed during the study to oppose hegemonic ways of representing (undocumented) migrants. The article aims to make a methodological contribution by reflecting on ethics and the pragmatic combination of different participatory methods while offering a conceptual vocabulary for approaching mediation, migration, and alterity from the perspective of progressive social change.","PeriodicalId":54193,"journal":{"name":"Communication Culture & Critique","volume":"22 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135353385","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nicole K Stewart, Philippa R Adams, Shams Bin Quader
Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic amplified inequities for contingent scholars in the neoliberal gig academy. In this article, we document the struggles of three early career scholars, all contingent instructors, researchers, or both, working at multiple institutions in higher education (HE). Through critical collaborative autoethnography we follow our experiences through the pandemic with a focus on the ‘return to campus’ semester in fall 2021. We forge a critique and activist stance against the structural problem of precarity in HE using our dialogues and vignettes to highlight our experiences around precarity, mobility, and systemic inequities.
{"title":"“We are disposable”: precarity, mobility, and inequity in higher education’s gig academy","authors":"Nicole K Stewart, Philippa R Adams, Shams Bin Quader","doi":"10.1093/ccc/tcad030","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcad030","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic amplified inequities for contingent scholars in the neoliberal gig academy. In this article, we document the struggles of three early career scholars, all contingent instructors, researchers, or both, working at multiple institutions in higher education (HE). Through critical collaborative autoethnography we follow our experiences through the pandemic with a focus on the ‘return to campus’ semester in fall 2021. We forge a critique and activist stance against the structural problem of precarity in HE using our dialogues and vignettes to highlight our experiences around precarity, mobility, and systemic inequities.","PeriodicalId":54193,"journal":{"name":"Communication Culture & Critique","volume":"15 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135394461","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This article takes the music industry in Egypt as an empirical case study for understanding some imperial politics of music streaming’s global expansion. Based on accounts of industry professionals, it suggests that the digitization of the music industry in line with the logics of global streaming technologies is characterized by a spatial-temporal regime of “being behind,” which I refer to as “lag.” Lag is marked by a perpetual striving for that which is always just out of reach, and it demonstrates how streaming can act as a technology of temporal recalibration. I argue that lag is the lived experience of imperial power by showing how it is rooted in longer histories of colonial dominance and control in Egypt. Most broadly, this article suggests that theorizing digitization from the Global South invites greater attention to history and culture to avoid universalizing theories of streaming that uphold Western histories and ideologies as normative.
{"title":"Imperial lag: some spatial-temporal politics of music streaming’s global expansion","authors":"Darci Sprengel","doi":"10.1093/ccc/tcad024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcad024","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article takes the music industry in Egypt as an empirical case study for understanding some imperial politics of music streaming’s global expansion. Based on accounts of industry professionals, it suggests that the digitization of the music industry in line with the logics of global streaming technologies is characterized by a spatial-temporal regime of “being behind,” which I refer to as “lag.” Lag is marked by a perpetual striving for that which is always just out of reach, and it demonstrates how streaming can act as a technology of temporal recalibration. I argue that lag is the lived experience of imperial power by showing how it is rooted in longer histories of colonial dominance and control in Egypt. Most broadly, this article suggests that theorizing digitization from the Global South invites greater attention to history and culture to avoid universalizing theories of streaming that uphold Western histories and ideologies as normative.","PeriodicalId":54193,"journal":{"name":"Communication Culture & Critique","volume":"33 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135048149","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}