I’m working on a sshrc funding proposal. For those who aren’t familiar, funding from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canad makes the difference between attending and not attending graduate school. I’ve decided to pursue the PhD and working on the proposal is both exciting and frustrating. I’m working with vague ideas about women, violence, and the internet but since we know that this is a huge issue it’s taking a long time to get a focus and research question.
I’m kicking around ideas about why gendered violence occurs online, cultures of resistance against the harassment, why certain individuals become targets/victims and their agency, Lessig’s four pillars of internet governance (norms, laws, architecture, market), the role of the internet in constructing women’s bodies, identities, consciousness (this taken from Romano’s piece below), and of course what to do about it all, but first understanding it from a philosophical perspective.
Maybe I’ll come back and link these up later but if you’re curious about any of them I advise select text > right click (control+click on mac) > search in google.
On my desk with highlighter poised I’ve got:
- Alison Adam: Cyberstalking and Internet pornography: Gender and the Gaze
- Adam: Gender and Computer Ethics
- Chat Garcia Romano: Beyond Tools: Technology as a feminist agenda
- Leslie Regan Shade and Barbara Crow: Canadian Feminist Perspectives on Digital Technology
- Barbara Crow and Graham Longford: Digital Restructuring: Gender, Class and Citizenship in the Information Society in Canada
I see history, philosophy, and com studies in this.
Also in the mix is Donna Haraway’s Simians, Cyborgs, and Women because you can’t talk about women and technology without the Cyborg Manifesto. How I missed the Cyborg Manifesto. It’s probably been two years since I last tried to get through understand read it.
It’s been a long day and I ran out of food hours ago. Even though I’m not done I have to leave for food and rest. I’ll be back early or work late at home or something because I need a draft for my letter writers in the morning.
If anyone has any great ideas let me know. I could use one before 9am tomorrow.
