[ecrea] CFP - Entanglements: Activism and Technology - Fibreculture Journal

Call For Papers- June 2014_Entanglements: Activism and Technology

http://fibreculturejournal.org/

http://fibreculturejournal.org/cfp_entanglements/

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Please note that for this issue, initial submissions should be abstracts 
only

Issue Editors: Pip Shea, Tanya Notley and Jean Burgess

Abstract deadline: August 20 2014 (no late abstracts will be accepted)
Article deadline: November 3 2014
Publication aimed for: February 2015

all contributors and editors must read the guidelines at:
http://fibreculturejournal.org/policy-and-style/
before working with the Fibreculture Journal

Email correspondence for this issue: (p.shea /at/ qub.ac.uk)

This themed issue explores the entanglements that arise due to frictions 
between the philosophies embedded within technologies and the 
philosophies embedded within activism. Straightforward solutions are 
rarely on offer as the bringing together of different philosophies 
requires the negotiation of acceptance, compromise, or submission (Tsing 
2004). This friction can be disruptive, productive, or both, and it may 
contribute discord or harmony.

In this special issue, we seek submissions that respond to the idea that 
frictions between technologies and activists may ultimately enhance the 
ability of activists to take more control of their projects, create new 
ethical spaces and subvert technologies, just as it may also result in 
tension, conflict and hostility.

By dwelling in between and within these frictions and entanglements – 
through strategic and tactical media discourses as well as the very 
concept of an activist politics within technology – this special issue 
will elucidate the context-specific nature, constraints and 
possibilities of the digital environments that are co-habited by 
activists from proximate fields including social movements, human 
rights, ecological and green movements, international development, 
community arts and cultural development.

Past issues of the Fibreculture Journal have examined activist 
philosophies from angles such as social justice and networked 
organisational forms, communication rights and net neutrality debates, 
and the push back against precarious new media labour. Our issue extends 
this work by revealing the conflicting debates that surround activist 
philosophies of technology.

Submissions are sought that engage specifically with the ethics, 
rationales and methods adopted by activists to justify selecting, 
building, using, promoting or rejecting specific technologies. We also 
encourage work that considers the ways in which these negotiations speak 
to broader mythologies and tensions embedded within digital culture – 
between openness and control; political consistency and popular appeal; 
appropriateness, usability and availability.

We invite responses to these provocations from activists, practitioners 
and academics. Critiques, case studies, and multimedia proposals will be 
considered for inclusion. Submissions should explore both constraints 
and possibilities caused by activism and its digital technology 
entanglements through the following themes:

    * Alternative technology versus appropriate technology
    * Pragmatism and technology choice
    * The philosophies and practices of hacking technologies
    * Activist cultures and the proprietary web
    * Digital privacy and security breaches and errors
    * Uncovering and exposing technology vulnerabilities
    * Technology and e-waste
    * The philosophies of long/short term impact
    * Authenticity and evidence

Initial submissions should comprise 300 word abstracts and 60 word 
biographies, emailed to (p.shea /at/ qub.ac.uk) and (t.notley /at/ uws.edu.au)

References:

Tsing, A. 2005 Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection. Princeton: 
Princeton University Press.

The Fibreculture Journal (http://fibreculturejournal.org/) is a peer 
reviewed international journal, associated with Open Humanities Press 
(http://openhumanitiespress.org/), that explores critical and 
speculative interventions in the debate and discussions concerning 
information and communication technologies and their policy frameworks, 
network cultures and their informational logic, new media forms and 
their deployment, and the possibilities of socio-technical invention and 
sustainability.

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