Information Activism. A Queer History of Lesbian Media Technologies (original) (raw)
Related papers
Catalyst, 2022
At a virtual event hosted by the ONE Archives in celebration of their caringly provocative book Information Activism: A Queer History of Lesbian Media Technologies, author Cait McKinney ended their presentation with a photo of a lavender pencil embossed with the phrase "lesbians invented the internet." 1 Though McKinney was deliberate in reminding the audience that this statement is not factually true (as they also make clear throughout the book itself), this tongue-in-cheek assertion cleverly signifies the book's intertwined intellectual, methodological, and community-oriented contributions to studies of queer information. Additionally, this pencil-created by McKinney's partner, artist Hazel Meyer-playfully gestures toward not only the affective and erotic relationships (in Lorde's sense) that underlie lesbian-feminist organizing, but equally important, the material practices like handwritten records and marginalia that structure these archives themselves. As a contemporary object referencing historical artifacts by artists and activists, the pencil further comments on contemporaneous efforts to revive, recontextualize, and remediate lesbianfeminist visual and material cultures via social media (a topic McKinney references throughout the book and particularly in the epilogue). Which is to say: there are many ways to read this excellent book-as prehistory of the internet, as reengagement with lesbian-feminist activism, as an intervention into present-day digital cultures, and beyond-but McKinney's strengths are in queerly refusing neat conclusions.
Fashioning Lives and Information Activism: reading queer life, restor(y)ing kinship
Feminist Media Studies, 2022
This review engages with two queer approaches to archival knowledge and critical literacy, represented, respectively, in Cait McKinney's Information Activism and Eric Darnell Pritchard's Fashioning Lives. In Information Activism, McKinney explores the physical and digital contents of the Lesbian Herstory Archives, considering the implications of late twentieth-century lesbian activism on contemporary queer publics, and on their own identity. In Fashioning Lives, Pritchard fuses his own Black queer literacy narrative with a collage of interviews to form a capacious definition of "reading" and resisting racist, reductionist litgeracy norms. Blending autobiographical, ethnographic, and archival methods, both compellingly excavate racialized, gendered, and queer literacy practices, and present queerness as a text to be read, passed-on, and madekin with via intergenerational engagement. They also bring to light the epistemic violence underpinning both literacy norms and archives, while simultaneously identifying their ambiguity and partiality as possible points of queer transformation.
Fashioning Lives & Information Activism: reading queer life, restor(y)ing kinship
Feminist Media Studies, 2022
This review engages with two queer approaches to archival knowledge and critical literacy, represented, respectively, in Cait McKinney’s Information Activism and Eric Darnell Pritchard’s Fashioning Lives. In Information Activism, McKinney explores the physical and digital contents of the Lesbian Herstory Archives, considering the implications of late twentieth-century lesbian activism on contemporary queer publics, and on their own identity. In Fashioning Lives, Pritchard fuses his own Black queer literacy narrative with a collage of interviews to form a capacious definition of “reading” and resisting racist, reductionist literacy norms. Blending autobiographical, ethnographic, and archival methods, both compellingly excavate racialized, gendered, and queer literacy practices, and present queerness as a text to be read, passed-on, and made- kin with via intergenerational engagement. They also bring to light the epistemic violence underpinning both literacy norms and archives, while simultaneously identifying their ambiguity and partiality as possible points of queer transformation.
New Media & Society, 2014
This article analyses the social imaginary of ‘networked feminism’ as an ideological construct of legitimate political engagement, drawing on ethnographic study conducted with London-based women’s organisations. For many women’s groups, the desire to connect echoes libertarian visions of Web 2.0 as an ‘open’ and ‘shared’ space, and it is encouraged by widely circulating governmental narratives of digital inclusion. In the context of public services becoming digital by default, and severe funding cuts to volunteer organisations in the United Kingdom, feminist organisations are invited to revise the allocation of resources, in order to best accommodate the setting up of digital platforms, and at the same time, to maintain their political and social aims. It is argued that there are tensions between the imaginaries of a ‘digital sisterhood’ and the material realities of women’s organisations: age, lack of resources and media literacy were found to be the three most important factors th...
Beyond Grrrlpower: Women's Rights, Digital Activism, and Alternative Feminisms
This thesis examines how activists use digital and mobile media technologies for political action in women’s rights causes in Melbourne. A feminist critique is applied to two case studies to analyse how activists are using digital technologies to facilitate and participate in these mass protests. I interviewed four feminist activists who were involved in Slutwalk Melbourne (2013) and Reclaim the Night Melbourne (2012) to understand how they used media technology to promote the causes they felt passionate about and also how they identified with the concept of feminism. What does it mean to be a ‘feminist activist’ and how might we conceptualise this politics as a new alternate form of feminism? How might digital media technologies affect the development of activists’ values and understanding of feminist concerns? I explore whether media technologies are being used to achieve traditional engagement (mass public rallies), whether these emerging behaviours can be considered a new form of political engagement, or if online actions are drawing attention away from genuine radical movements. My findings showed that online and offline activism are bound in an inseparable relationship that strengthens and extends conventional political activism. Digital technologies are being used for much more than just the strict facilitation of physical mass protests and activists are engaging in multiple communities, both at the level of local and global, in women’s rights causes. From this analysis it is clear that in the light of new technologies, a less rigid definition of participation is needed to fully acknowledge contemporary feminist politics. New ways of thinking how and why people engage in issues they care about the most, through social and mobile media, is crucial to recognising how young people use on- line environments to develop their sense of political consciousness.
This paper explores the impact of the Internet on offline social movement mobilization from the perspective of identity building. It is based on a case study of a women’s group in Hong Kong, the Queer Sisters, and the bulletin board it created on the World Wide Web. Content analysis, an online survey, interviews and observation conducted between September 1999 and December 2000 found that the bulletin board helped to foster a sense of belonging to the Queer Sisters among participants. Bulletin board participants also shared a culture of opposition to the dominant order. But a collective consciousness was absent, so the bulletin board fell short of building a collective identity among its participants. This paper, however, argues that the absence of a collective identity on the bulletin board is the result of the way the board was administered, constrained by the resources and the aims of the Queer Sisters. It suggests that the potential for the Internet to build collective identities for social movements differs for different types of social movements.
Feminist Activism and Digital Networks
2016
Communication for Social Change (CSC) is a defined field of academic enquiry that is explicitly transdisciplinary and that has been shaped by a variety of theoretical inputs from a variety of traditions, from sociology and development to social movement studies. The leveraging of communication, information and the media in social change is the basis for a global industry that is supported by governments, development aid agencies, foundations, and international and local NGOs. It is also the basis for multiple interventions at grassroots levels, with participatory communication processes and community media making a difference through raising awareness, mobilising communities, strengthening empowerment and contributing to local change. This series on Communication for Social Change intentionally provides the space for critical writings in CSC theory, practice, policy, strategy and methods. It fills a gap in the field by exploring new thinking, institutional critiques and innovative methods. It offers the opportunity for scholars and practitioners to engage with CSC as both an industry and as a local practice, shaped by political economy as much as by local cultural needs. The series explicitly intends to highlight, critique and explore the gaps between ideological promise, institutional performance and realities of practice.