Call for Papers: Gender, Migration and Digital Networks in Asia
In recent years, emerging scholarship on migration and digital networks have focused on the role of digital technologies in enhancing, hindering and reshaping communication among transnational families, migrant communities and social groups. For example, there has been much interest in the role of social media in the sustenance of emotional bonds, the increasing ubiquity of smart phones and long-distance mothering (Wilding 2012; Baldassar 2016; Winarnita 2019).
While the growing literature has raised important questions about the relationship between grounded social practices among migrants and the development of digital networks, few has examined how the use of technologies by migrants itself is gendered. This is a significant lacuna particularly in the context of Asia where cultural and socioeconomic practices of migration and digital communities continue to hinge on gendered hierarchy and the regimes of sexuality. Digital networks have created both opportunities and challenges even as they open up innovative forms of gender performance and citizenship among migrants in Asia.
This workshop hence seeks to fill this gap by paying attention to the political economy of gender and its intersections with migrants’ digital networks. It will bring together a range of empirical studies from Asian contexts to contribute towards strengthening theoretical understanding in the study of gender, migration, transnationalism and digital networks. The workshop’s thematic focus will include, but not limited to, following broadly-defined areas:
Transnational digital activism among migrant communities for gender and sexuality justice
Biometric identifications, citizenship and border control of gendered bodies
The gendered labour of digital work and virtual sweatshops
Sexuality and media production among migrant communities
We welcome papers which are both theoretically engaged and methodologically rigorous, with strong preference for qualitative methodologies that can connect the experiences of individuals, family-members, firms, social groups, and organizations to the digital development of social, economic, political and cultural networks.
SUBMISSION OF PROPOSALS
Submissions should include a title, an abstract of no more than 250 words and a brief biography (150 words) using the Paper Proposal Form to Sharon at arios@nus.edu.sg by 23 September 2019. Only successful applicants will be contacted by mid-October, and be provided with partial/full airfare funding and/or 3 nights of accommodation (one author per paper). Paper presenters will be required to submit a draft paper of 5,000-8,000 words by 20 January 2020.
Please note that only previously unpublished papers or those not already committed elsewhere can be accepted. The organisers intend to compile a journal special issue from the workshop proceedings. If you have questions about the thematic focus, do not hesitate to contact Dr Shiori Shakuto at arisha@nus.edu.sg
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