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[Commlist] cfp: Beyond the Tropicalization of Concepts: Theorizing Digital Realities with and from the Global South
Mon Jan 31 17:42:42 GMT 2022
Beyond the Tropicalization of Concepts: Theorizing Digital Realities
with and from the Global South
Special Issue of Communication, Culture & Critique (Vol. 16, No.2,June 2023)
Call for Papers
Paper Abstract Deadline (500 words):April 1st, 2022
Complete Manuscript Deadline (6000-7000 words):November 1st, 2022
Editors: Edgar Gómez Cruz (University of Texas at Austin), Heather
Horst (Western Sydney University), IgnacioSiles (Universidad de Costa
Rica),Cheryll Ruth Soriano (De La Salle University, Philippines)
In a recent analysis of the field of digital media, Borah (2017) argues
that most researchers tend to reproduce and recirculate key concepts
(Ogan, 2014). From “filter bubbles,” “platformization” and “fake news,”
to “algorithmic cultures,” and “influencers,” concepts that have emerged
in the global north have found their way into analyses of the use of
digital media in other parts of the world without much critical analysis
that reflects upon where the concepts came from and why they are
appropriate for a particular set of practices or empirical realities.
To be sure, “importing” concepts generated in other settings is a
product of global academic exchanges. It has also made it possible to
engage in comparative work and further dialogue between scholars in
various places around shared concepts and ideas.It can also lead to the
development of approaches that combine complementary frameworks for
making sense of multiple settings and practices.
Yet, airdropping one concept into another arena can also be problematic.
First, importing concepts runs the risk of reproducing colonial dynamics
of dependency, submission, and obedience, thus exacerbating what de
Sousa Santos (2007) called “abyssal thinking,” that is a system of
thought that is predicated upon making invisible certain “forms of
knowledge that cannot be fitted into [this system]” (p. 47). The growing
move towards the internationalization of digital communication and media
studies (Lim & Soriano, 2016;Thussu, 2009) and the nudge towards a
‘digital decolonial turn’ (Casilli, 2019) attempt to facilitate the
expansion of our conceptual tools, recognizing that digital
communication everywhere is shaped by local histories, values,
infrastructures, rituals, language, policies, and meanings. However, the
centrality of predominant theories remains (Shome, 2019).
Second, incorporating concepts conceived to understand other contexts
runs the risk of naturalizing the realities they were meant to describe.
As numerous scholars have noted, metaphors, theories, and methods are
not only ways to describe realities but also to create them. Adopting
certain theoretical frameworks to make sense of digital realities might
imply the exclusion of empirical evidence or contextual matters that do
not fit well with the theories that are imported.
Third, this dynamic has been patterned in oneparticular way: theoretical
concepts travel to the global south but usually not the other way around
(that is, from the global south to the rest of the world). This is
problematic in that it tends to naturalize another colonial trend: while
scholars in certain parts of the world are seen as producers of
knowledge, researchers in the global south become ambassadors and
audiences of the theories developed elsewhere,helping to consolidate
them but are not necessarily encouraged to dialogue with, critique, or
dismiss concepts that are not relevant.
And fourth, and equally important,these importedconcepts also become
solidified in many cases as public policies. As we know from the
extensive work carried out in communication for development
(e.g., Lennie&Tacchi, 2013) and, more recently the field of ICT4D,
governments often apply, fund and support programs that are developed in
other places that recipients of funding are encouraged to reproduce and
implement. They also tend to treat digital media and technology as the
source for innovation and economic development rather than appreciating
some of the nuanced ways they are integrated (e.g., Burrell&Oreglia,2015).
Against these challenges, this special issue aims to offer insights into
work that has produced novel ways to study, theorize, and enact the
specific realities of the global south associated with the use of
digital media. South, in thiscontext, can be understood “not merely [as]
a geographical or geopolitical marker ... but a plural entity subsuming
also the different, the underprivileged, the alternative, the resistant,
the invisible, and the subversive” (Milan &Treré, 2019, p. 321).
Thisspecialissue seeks to make a twofold contribution. On the one hand,
it intends to extend de-westernization and decolonizing efforts in the
case of research on digital media. On the other hand, it invites
scholars in and beyond theglobalsouth to engage in a collective
“epistemic emancipation,” an invitation to rethink and rewrite digital
media theory not just as a “theory ‘about’ the south,” but “about the
effects of the south itself on theory, the effects of its ex-centrality”
(Comaroff &Comaroff, 2012). Following this idea,theorizing emerges not
to denote an exception but as a vantage point for understanding the
global power relations underscoring our everyday digital realities.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
*
Theoretical and methodological discussions that specifically develop
concepts for processes in the global south, how they differ or how
they relate to established frameworks for making sense of digital
realities.
*
Empirical analyses of practices and phenomena that characterize the
global south.
*
Analyses of concepts that emerged and/or were modified in the global
south that are conceptually useful for understanding the global north.
*
Theoretical discussions that problematize the import of theoretical
frameworks in the global south.
*
Literature reviews of local phenomena associated with the use and
development of digital realities in the global south.
*
Historical accounts of the implementation of logics or processes
that account for the specificities of the global south.
*
Discussions of policy implications derived from decolonization
analyses.
References
Borah, P. (2017). Emerging communication technology research:
Theoretical and methodological variables in the last 16years and future
directions.New Media & Society,19(4), 616–636.
Burrell, J., &Oreglia, E. (2015). The myth of market price information:
Mobile phones and the application of economic knowledge in ICTD.Economy
and Society, 44(2), 271–292.doi: 10.1080/03085147.2015.1013742
Casilli, A. (2017). Digitallabor studies go global: Toward a digital
decolonial turn.International Journal of Communication,11, 3934–3954
de Sousa Santos, B. (2007). Beyond Abyssal Thinking: From Global Lines
to Ecologies of Knowledges.Review (Fernand BraudelCenter), 30(1), 45-89.
Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40241677
<http://www.jstor.org/stable/40241677>
Comaroff, J., &Comaroff, J. (2012). Theory from the South: A
rejoinder.Cultural
Anthropology.https://culanth.org/fieldsights/theory-from-the-south-a-rejoinder
<https://culanth.org/fieldsights/theory-from-the-south-a-rejoinder>
Lennie, J. &Tacchi, Jo. (2013. Evaluating Communication for Development:
A Framework for Social Change. New York, NY: Routledge.
Lim, S. S. & Soriano, C.R. (2016). A (digital) giant
awakens--Invigorating media studies with Asian perspectives. In S.S. Lim
& C.R. Soriano (eds.),Asian perspectives on digital cultures: Emerging
phenomena, enduring concepts. Routledge.
Machen, R., &Nost, E. (2021). Thinking algorithmically: The making of
hegemonic knowledge in climate governance.Transactions of the Institute
of British Geographers.
Milan, S., &Treré, E. (2019). Big data from the south(s): Beyond data
universalism.Television & New Media,20(4), 319–335.
Ogan, C. (2014). Round pegs in square holes: Is mass communication
theory a useful tool in conducting Internet research? In R. S. Fortner &
P. M. Fackler (Eds.),The handbook of media and mass communication
theory (pp. 629–644). Wiley.
Shome, R. (2019). When postcolonial studies interrupts media
studies,Communication, Culture and Critique, 12(3),
305–322.https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcz020
<https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcz020>
Submission Instructions:
Please submit a 500-word abstract as well as a short (2-page) CV by
April 1,2022, to the co-editors of the special issue
(atedgar.gomezcruz /at/ ischool.utexas.edu)
<mailto:(edgar.gomezcruz /at/ ischool.utexas.edu)>,(ignacio.siles /at/ ucr.ac.cr)
<mailto:(ignacio.siles /at/ ucr.ac.cr)>,(H.Horst /at/ westernsydney.edu.au)
<mailto:(H.Horst /at/ westernsydney.edu.au)>,(cheryll.soriano /at/ dlsu.edu.ph)
<mailto:(cheryll.soriano /at/ dlsu.edu.ph)>. Please include all co-editors on
your email submission.
Authors whose abstracts are selected will be notified byMay 1st,
2022 and asked to submit complete manuscripts (6000-7000 words,
including notes and references, in Word format, following the 6th APA
style) directly toScholarOne (https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cccr
<https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cccr>) byNovember 1st, 2022. When
submitting your manuscript, please designate the submission as “Original
Article” on the “Step 1: Type, Title & Abstract” page. No payment from
authors is required.
Acceptance of the abstracts does not guarantee publication of the
papers, which will be subject toanonymous peer review. If you have any
further questions, please do not hesitate to contact the co-editors at
the abovefour email addresses.
Guest editors’ bios:
Edgar Gómez Cruz is an AssociateProfessor at the School of Information
at the University of Texas at Austin. He has published widely
onseveral topics relating to digital culture, particularly in the areas
of material visual practices, digital ethnography and critical
approaches to digital technologies. His recent publications include the
books:Vital Technologies: Thinking Digital Cultures from Latin
America (2022),From Kodak Culture to Networked Image: An Ethnography of
Digital Photography Practices (2012), and the co-edited volumesDigital
Photography and Everyday Life. Empirical Studies on Material Visual
Practices (Routledge, 2016) withAskoLehmuskallio andRefiguring
Techniques in Visual Digital Research (Palgrave, 2017), with
ShantiSumartojo and Sarah Pink.
Heather Horst is Professor and Director of the Institute for Culture and
Society at Western Sydney University, Australia. Her research focuses
upon material culture and the mediation of social relations through
digital media and technology in a range of settings including the
Caribbean and the Pacific. Her books focused upon these themes
includeThe Cell Phone: An Anthropology of Communication (Horst and
Miller, 2006);Digital Anthropology (Horst and Miller, 2012), Digital
Ethnography: Principles and Practice (with Sarah Pink, et al. 2016), The
Moral Economy of Mobile Phones: Pacific Island Perspectives(Foster and
Horst, eds. 2018),Location Technologies in International Context(Wilken,
Goggin and Horst, eds. 2019), among others. Her current research focuses
upon the global Fijian fashion system, Fintech and agriculture in Laos
and Cambodia and automated decision-making in the global south as part
of the ARC Centre of Excellence of Automated Decision-Making and Society.
IgnacioSiles is a professor of media and technology studies in the
School of Communication and researcher in the Centro
deInvestigaciónenComunicación (CICOM) at Universidad de Costa Rica. He
is the author ofA Transnational History of the Internet in Central
America, 1985–2000 (2020, Palgrave Macmillan) andNetworked Selves:
Trajectories of Blogging in the United States and France (2017, Peter
Lang), along with several articles on the relationship between
technology, communication, and society.
Cheryll Ruth Sorianois Professor in the Department of Communication at
De La Salle University, Manila. Her research deals with questions of
power, ideology and resistance in digital cultures. Her current work
examines the socio-technical politics of content production and the
transformations inlabor and organizing in the platform economy. She
co-edited the book (with S.S. Lim),Asian Perspectives on Digital
Culture: Emerging Phenomena, Enduring Concepts(Routledge, 2016), and
authors the monograph (with E.Cabalquinto),YouTube and Brokerage
Dynamics in Philippine Digital Cultures (Amsterdam University Press,
forthcoming).
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