<nettime> [01/13/1999]: Culture, Class, and Cyberspace

[Art McGee <amcgee@igc.org>]

[The date in the subject indicates the last time this list was updated]

Greetings,

I don't agree with all the conclusions, but listed below are some very
interesting and important resources, dealing with the intersection of
ethnicity, culture, class, poverty, computers, and cyberspace. 

Even if you're busy, please be sure to at least browse them. 

By the way, many of the links lead to original material, not the
summarized articles with similar titles that you may have read 
in a newspaper or magazine.

---

[Ethnicity and Culture Section]

cy.Rev #4: Technological Revolution & Prospects 
for Black Liberation in the 21st Century
<http://www.eff.org/pub/Publications/E-journals/CyRev/cyrev4.html#tech>

Atlantic Monthly 99.01:
Technology Versus African-Americans
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/99jan/aftech.htm

First Monday 3.11: Africa Connected
http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue3_11/hall/

Virtual University/Segregated Highway? 
The Politics of Connectivity
http://www.meg.uct.ac.za/martin/paper3.htm

Brillo Magazine, Issue Number 3, "The Invasion"
Resisting Erase-ism on the 'Net
<http://www.virago-net.com/brillo/erasism.htm>

CTHEORY: Global Algorithm 1.10:
Deregulation/Globalisation: The Loss of Cultural Diversity?
<http://www.ctheory.com/ga1.10-deregulation.html>

Buying into the Computer Age: 
A Look at Hispanic Families
<http://www.cgu.edu/inst/aw1-1.html>

UnderCurrent #4:
Virtual Whiteness and Narrative Diversity
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~ucurrent/uc4/4-lockard.html

Brillo Magazine, Issue Number 2, "A Bug in the Wetware"
Buggin' in and Out: Eye Dialectal Nightmares in Cyberspace
<http://www.virago-net.com/brillo/No2/email.htm>

Brillo Magazine, Issue Number 2, "A Bug in the Wetware"
In Bed with the Devil
<http://www.virago-net.com/brillo/No2/rant.htm>

The Unbearable Whiteness of Being: 
African American Critical Theory and Cyberculture
<http://www.kalital.com/Text/Writing/Whitenes.html>

Cultural Uses of New, Networked Internet Information and 
Communication Technologies: Implications for US Latino Identities
<http://sunsite.unc.edu/jlillie/thesis.html>

Bridging the Digital Divide: 
The Impact of Race on Computer Access and Internet Use
<http://www2000.ogsm.vanderbilt.edu/papers/race/science.html>

What it Means to be Black in Cyberspace
<http://www.panix.com/~mbowen/cz/identity/blakCMC.html>

Cyborg Diaspora:
Virtual Imagined Community
<http://ernie.bgsu.edu/~radhik/sanov.html>

Race In/For Cyberspace: 
Identity Tourism and Racial Passing on the Internet
<http://acorn.grove.iup.edu/en/workdays/Nakamura.html>

American Emissaries to Africa:
>From John Barlow via James Bond to James Baldwin and Back 
<http://www.factory.org/nettime/archive/1292.html>

What Color is the Net?
<http://www.hotwired.com/netizen/97/11/index2a.html>

WIRED 3.12: 
Idees Fortes - Race in Cyberspace?
<http://www.wired.com/wired/3.12/departments/berger.if.html>

Book Review: 
The African-American Resource Guide to the Internet
<http://www.otal.umd.edu/~rccs/books/battle.html>

Black Pioneers of the Internet
<http://www.delphi.com/blackpioneers/>

Forsaken Geographies: 
Cyberspace and the New World 'Other'
<http://eng.hss.cmu.edu/internet/oguibe/>
<http://arts.usf.edu/~ooguibe/madrid.htm>

On Digital 'Third Worlds': 
An interview with Olu Oguibe
<http://arts.usf.edu/~ooguibe/springer.htm>

The Virtual Barrio @ The Other Frontier 
(or the Chicano inerneta)
<http://www.telefonica.es/fat/egomez.html>

Cultural Survival Quarterly:
The Internet and Indigenous Communities
<http://www.cs.org/csq/csqinternet.html>

Nils Zurawskis' Ethnicity and Culture in Cyberspace Papers
<http://www.uni-muenster.de/Soziologie/Home/zurawski/papers.html>

[The next link is to some comments I made a few years ago]

AFROAM-L Archives - February 1995: 
Race, Ethnicity, Culture, and Cyberspace
<http://www.afrinet.net/~hallh/afrotalk/afrofeb95/0796.html>

[Below is a great essay (not specifically dealing with cyberspace), that 
 discusses multiple identities from an apparently non-European perspective]

The Multiple Self: 
Exploring Between and Beyond Modernity and Postmodernity
<http://www1.umn.edu/irp/multiple.htm>

[Lastly, a link to a resource page that contains general and 
 gender-based papers on net sociology/identity]

The Media and Communication Studies Site
Resource Page for Gender, Ethnicity & Class: Social and Personal Identity
<http://www.aber.ac.uk/~dgc/gender05.html>

---

[Class and Poverty Section]

cy.Rev: A Journal of Cybernetic Revolution, 
Sustainable Socialism and Radical Democracy
<http://www.eff.org/pub/Publications/E-journals/CyRev/>

MIT Technology Review - January/February 1999
The Peoples Computer: The Rich Peoples Computer?
<http://www.techreview.com/articles/jan99/dertouzos.htm>

CTHEORY: Global Algorithm 1.4: 
The Theory of the Virtual Class
<http://www.ctheory.com/ga1.4-theory_virtual.html>

The Internet and Poverty: 
Real Help or Real Hype?
<http://www.oneworld.org/panos/briefing/interpov.htm>

Possible Roles for Electronic Community Networks and Participatory
Development Strategies in Access Programs for Poor Neighborhoods
<http://www.unc.edu/~jlillie/310.html>

High Technology and Low-Income Communities: 
Prospects for the Positive Use of Advanced Information Technology
<http://web.mit.edu/sap/www/high-low/>

Losing Ground Bit by Bit:
Low-Income Communities in the Information Age 
<http://www.benton.org/Library/Low-Income/>

Falling Through the Net II: 
New Data on the Digital Divide
<http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/net2/>

Impact of CTCnet Affiliates:
Findings from a National Survey of Users of Community Technology Centers
<http://www.ctcnet.org/impact98.htm>

Cybersociology Magazine: 
Issue 3 - Digital Third Worlds
<http://members.aol.com/Cybersoc/issue3.html>

---

[Gender and Sexuality Section]

[In this section, I'm keeping the focus on Women and GLBT people of color,
 which is why you aren't seeing as many listings as you might expect]

T.H.E. Journal, December 1998
The Cyber Sisters Club: 
Using the Internet to Bridge the Technology Gap with Inner City Girls
<http://www.thejournal.com/magazine/current/feat01.html>

Womenspace Spring 98: Black Women on the Net
<http://www.womenspace.ca/vol33e.html>

Brillo Magazine, Number 1, "Armed and Dangerous"
Like Fish to W.A.T.E.R.
<http://www.virago-net.com/brillo/No1/water.htm>

Brillo Magazine, Number 1, "Armed and Dangerous"
Turned On, Plugged In, Left Out
<http://www.virago-net.com/brillo/No1/pluggedi.htm>

---

[Definitive Quote Section]

Lastly, in case you're wondering why I even bothered to put this list
together, one of my "white" colleagues said it better than I ever could: 

"We're resisting the tired-but-still-commonly-accepted idea that the
virtual world provides a somehow "level" playing field, in which race,
gender, [and] culture(s) no longer matter. We think that such ideas are 
based on the false notion that there's a normative white male middle-class
culture to which all folks can gain access, now that the barriers imposed
by the physical body have been miraculously removed. We want [to see] 
essays, articles, and examples of work which show that the "politics of 
identity" is alive and well on the internet, and that instead of regressing 
to a sort of Eisenhowerian procession of the bland leading the bland, there 
are people out there using electronic technology to emphasize and celebrate
and motivate and defend their own communities and cultural ideals." 

"There's been a lot of talk (mostly by white men) about the "liberating"
potential of the internet and of virtual spaces.  What they usually mean
is a liberation *from* the body, to some kind of higher plane. But we're
interested in how folks whose bodies are usually threatened by the power
structure (nonwhite folks, women, poor people, queer folks) are using the
internet as a platform for making themselves more visible (a liberation
*of* the body), and how that connects to other contemporary activist
movements." 

            Kali Tal
            Lecturer, University of Arizona

---

Art McGee

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|  Organization Consultant    Institute for Global Communications  | 
|  SEIU Local 790                                   IRS 501(c)(3)  |
|  http://www.igc.org/                             amcgee@igc.org  |
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New Yorker Cartoon (Internet Savvy Dog):
 
"On the Internet, no one knows that you're a dog." 

Art McGee (Internet Ignorant Dog added to cartoon):

"What's wrong with being a dog?"
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