With guest speakers Dr Kylie Jarrett (Maynooth University, Ireland), Dr Helen Thornham (University of Leeds, UK) and Dr Amy Bonsall (Gender Institute, Royal Holloway)
How do digital platforms contribute to shape gender relations? Under what condition do platforms prompt the reproduction of patriarchy – or fuel new forms of feminist resistance? The third workshop of the series ‘The Politics of Platform Societies’ will unpack these complex questions.
The workshop has three main goals. First, we aim to identify how platforms prompt new dialectics between practices of patriarchal domination and feminist resistance. We will look, for instance, at the commodification of bodies and emotions on social media and at new practices of solidarity online. Second, we seek contributions to advance knowledge about how platforms are shaping gendered relations of production and social reproduction and to look at cases where, instead, platforms facilitate the emancipation of women. Finally, we seek to investigate whether digital platforms, which are supposedly borderless in nature, are facilitating the emergence of new transnational networks of feminist resistance.
Our guests will provide insights on new forms of sexist exploitation online and, at the same time, on the potential agency of civil society organisations and social movements to organise feminist resistance and solidarity through online communities.
Dr Kylie Jarrett is Associate Professor in Media Studies at Maynooth University, Ireland. Kylie’s expertise is on the political economy of digital media and in particular the commercial Web, with an emphasis on digital labour. She authored, among others, ‘Digital Labor’ (Polity, 2022) and ‘Feminism, Labour and Digital Media: The Digital Housewife’ (Routledge, 2016). Throughout her research, Kylie has applied Marxist feminist theories of domestic work to understand the practice of consumer labour.
Dr Helen Thornham is Associate Professor in Digital Cultures at University of Leeds. Helen has researched extensively on issues of gender and digital technology, culture, and data inequalities. She is currently leading the Network ‘INCLUDE+’ (INCLUsive Digital Economy network+), which explores how social and digital environments can be built, shaped and sustained to enable all people to thrive. In 2017, Helen authored the book ‘Gender and Digital Culture’ (Routledge) and she is currently working with Dr Joanne Armitage and a number of activist groups exploring technology and social justice issues in the UK and across Latin America through UKRI funded projects.
Dr Amy Bonsall is Gender Research and Outreach Fellow at the Gender Institute, Royal Holloway. She is co-founder of the ‘Women in Academia Support Network’, which connects more than 13,000 women working in higher education worldwide.
Professor Ben O’Loughlin (Director of the New Political Communication Unit at Royal Holloway) will introduce the workshop series.
The workshop is open to anyone. Indeed, our aim is to stimulate the participation of students, academics and citizens from every background and expertise. Digital platforms are part of our daily lives, shaping how we communicate, consume and crucially seek information on political events. These are the conditions in which we can be political. Our goal is to provide all the attendants with a compass to become more aware of the political implications of digitalisation.
The workshop will be held online. Click here to join.
