IT-enabled performative spaces in gender segregated work

This thesis investigates the use of ICT in Saudi Arabia to support collaboration between segregated genders. It attempts to understand the emerging technology practices of workers in higher education institutions, which are aimed at bridging the culturally imposed spatial divide between men and women in the workplace. In examining the gender-segregated context, the study also looks into the consequent organisational and structural changes resulting from technology use. This includes evaluating new practices in terms of progressive change, and how this specifically relates to the work experiences of women as a subordinated and marginalised group. Furthermore, the study uses the Saudi context as a vehicle to explore IS discussions regarding the human and material/technical aspects of agency in technology use, and the role attributed to each in theoretical perspectives on organisation. Prior research has extended Giddens' (1984) structuration theory to incorporate material agency as part of a social-technical ensemble. Yet the ways in which physical-digital spaces contextualise interactions and structure work practices are under explored. Thus, the study develops a conceptual model that extends concepts of 'locale' and 'regionalisation' from structuration theory to the IS field, and defines 'technical settings of interaction' constituted by human and material agencies. The research presented in this study uses a single case design, and collects data by conducting interviews and non-participant observation at Umm AI-Qura University (UQU) in Makkah. The case of gender segregated work in Saudi is used to illustrate the performativity of digital spaces, and demonstrates how workers use technical configurations of ICTs to create zones of interaction that can challenge existing cultural norms, or hinder progressive change. Finally, the study finds that attending to Giddens' focus on time-space not only adds an additional level of analysis to technology studies, but also shows the potential of structurational research in contributing to sociomaterial discussions on materiality

IT-enabled performative spaces in gender segregated work

This thesis investigates the use of ICT in Saudi Arabia to support collaboration between segregated genders. It attempts to understand the emerging technology practices of workers in higher education institutions, which are aimed at bridging the culturally imposed spatial divide between men and women in the workplace. In examining the gender-segregated context, the study also looks into the consequent organisational and structural changes resulting from technology use. This includes evaluating new practices in terms of progressive change, and how this specifically relates to the work experiences of women as a subordinated and marginalised group. Furthermore, the study uses the Saudi context as a vehicle to explore IS discussions regarding the human and material/technical aspects of agency in technology use, and the role attributed to each in theoretical perspectives on organisation. Prior research has extended Giddens' (1984) structuration theory to incorporate material agency as part of a social-technical ensemble. Yet the ways in which physical-digital spaces contextualise interactions and structure work practices are under explored. Thus, the study develops a conceptual model that extends concepts of 'locale' and 'regionalisation' from structuration theory to the IS field, and defines 'technical settings of interaction' constituted by human and material agencies. The research presented in this study uses a single case design, and collects data by conducting interviews and non-participant observation at Umm AI-Qura University (UQU) in Makkah. The case of gender segregated work in Saudi is used to illustrate the performativity of digital spaces, and demonstrates how workers use technical configurations of ICTs to create zones of interaction that can challenge existing cultural norms, or hinder progressive change. Finally, the study finds that attending to Giddens' focus on time-space not only adds an additional level of analysis to technology studies, but also shows the potential of structurational research in contributing to sociomaterial discussions on materiality

Bodies Out of Place: Performance, Space, Gender and Transgression in Contemporary Iran

Over the past eight years my Practice Research has focused on examining the relationship between space and gender through the lens of performance studies. In several performance intervention pieces, as well as via reflective texts, I have analysed how women in Iran, through the transgressive performance of everyday life, create alternative spaces, in ways that challenge the hegemonic religious and patriarchal norms and regulations. I have written a book called Ravayat-ha-ye Khiaban (Farsi-language publication, Stories of the Street); edited two essay collections, namely a special issue of Field (a journal of socially-engaged art criticism) on art and activism in Iran, and a special issue of the Farsi academic journal Spectrum on gender and public spaces; written many articles in Farsi and English including three peer-reviewed papers, given many invited talks and interviews; held many workshops on the topic of transgressive performance in gender-normative space; and have a produced a podcast of twelve half-hour episodes which I have curated into an online series, Radio Khiaban. In bringing this considerable body of work together, my PhD reflective thesis argues that the importance and impact of my, and other artists’ transgressive performance contribute to the production of lived space through their integration of the virtual into the real. Transgression here means ‘crossing a line’, which takes place when someone is judged to be or acts ‘out-of-place’, behaving in a way that is not considered appropriate or expected according to the norms (Cresswell, 2004: 103). My transgressive performances and those of other female artists in Iran, whether they involve lying down and resting in public places in a country where women’s bodies are relegated to indoor, private, hidden seclusion; or singing or dancing, again in public, under a regime that bans women from such public displays… constitute more than merely the ephemerality of performance. Rather, they have the capacity to become more sustainable instances of contestation, by intervening in the everyday lives of both the performers, and the audience members who pass by. Through these acts of resistance and transgression, women in Iran create spaces to practise their equal share of society and exercise their equal rights to their bodies

Chador | Veil–Tent Reconceptualizing the veil with a speculative and performative approach

This thesis is a research-creation project that aims to explore the veil beyond the controversial definitions and interpretations which have been ascribed to it, thereby to investigate the borders between inside and outside, men and women, human and non-human. This research, thus, speculates on the possibility of a composed veil, as a customizable boundary that can be personalized and co-created actively by its wearer through a performative approach. While the veil (chador in Farsi) negotiates privacy and interiority as a visible, personal space and boundary constructed directly on the body, at a larger yet still intimate scale, traditional Iranian architecture is also characterized by interiority and introverted spatiality as foundational principles. By positioning the body, the veil and Iranian residential architecture in mutual dynamic interaction, this research seeks to reconceptualize the veil as a ‘microcosmic dwelling place’ which defines an extension of privacy in public and emplaces the body within a context. Consequently, each phase of the research-creation project reveals particular material and spatial aspects of the veil, to constitute a multisensory environment that mutably reconstructs the boundaries between body and space. The composed veil, in this framing, no longer limited to any specific religion, or gender, or cultural context, could be redefined by that wearer as a means of individualized emplacement and engagement in a given social context

Politicization as Signification: Drag Performance as Hermeneutics

Judith Butler’s seminal book, Gender Trouble, categorizes drag performance as indicative example of gender performance. In it, they categorize drag performance along binary lines of gender “opposites”. I argue that Butler’s theory does not hold if the nuance inherent to drag performance is taken into consideration. In examining its complexity, I establish that the artform and its performers are politicized. Through this politicization, I explore how drag performers and drag performance are signified and are able to be understood hermeneutically as a way to expand Butler’s initial theory

Living at work:migrant worker dormitories in Malaysia

The COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia drew attention to the extremely poor living conditions of the country’s approximately 2.5 million migrants from South and Southeast Asia working in manufacturing, construction, services, and agriculture. International media reports throughout 2020 and 2021 highlighted the overcrowded, unsanitary, and unsafe accommodations provided by employers, including cramped hostels, stacked containers, and rented apartments. This article addresses how migrant worker accommodation in Malaysia is utilised by the state and by employers as a spatial mechanism of control to regulate migrant labour. This case study draws on over a hundred in-depth interviews with Nepali migrant workers, recruitment agents, employers, and policy officials in Malaysia. We detail how the Malaysian government’s requirement for migrants to live in employer-provided housing forms part of intensified immigration controls implemented by the federal government. This policy effectively transforms employers into ‘landlords’, bringing migrants’ ‘private space’ under their control, thereby enabling employers’ increased surveillance of their activities. We found that employers utilised the opportunity to discipline their workforces and intensify work regimes. We therefore argue that housing has become a double-layered regulatory tool to deepen labour control among migrant populations, perpetuate a state of temporariness, and reinforce visible boundaries between citizens and non-citizens. In the process, migrants’ living quarters (spaces of social reproduction) have been subsumed into the organisation of production, serving the demands of the low-wage, highly-controlled, political economy of Malaysia

Doing racialized masculinities in Finnish schools: subjectivation and de/humanization

This paper focuses on Judith Butler’s theorisation of the performative subject and contemporary critiques to consider its relevance to the doing of racialized masculinities in Finnish schools. Recent postcolonial critique has indicated that, early work on performativity and subjectivation implicitly assumes a white and western, enlightenment subject and does not take the aftermath of slavery into account. While Butler’s work since then theorises inequalities including racism, it leaves untheorized the de/subjectivation of Black people and those from other minoritised ethnic groups as well as how racialisation and abjection is a systematic part of the subjectivation of white people. This paper draws on a study of the narratives of Finnish 12–15-year-olds in order to shed light on processes of subjectivation they do while doing racialized masculinities. The findings point to the need to extend Butler’s theory of subjectivation to take power-knowledge-affect-relations and de/humanization on board in ways that account for Black as well as white people’s performative subjectivation

Senses of Gender

This paper explores the testimony of trans respondents to Count Me In Too (a participatory action research project that examined LGBT lives in Brighton and Hove), and this analysis occasions the development of innovative concepts for thinking about understandings and experiences of trans phenomena and gender. The analysis starts by exploring the diversity of trans identities before considering evidence of how health services pathologise trans experiences. These analyses not only call into question mind/body dualisms within contemporary gender schema, but also challenge the continued reliance on a sex/gender dichotomy – both in public institutions and in academic theorising – making a definitive distinction between transsexualism and transgenderism difficult to sustain. To do justice to the complexity of the respondents\' testimony, we advance the concept of a \'sense of gender\' – a sense that belongs to the body, but that is not the same as its fleshy materiality – as one register in which gender is lived, experienced and felt. This sense of gender becomes expressed in relation to a sense of dissonance (sometimes articulated through the \'wrong body discourse\') among the various elements that compose the body, its sex and its gender, such that the \'body\' experiences an inability to be \'consistent\' in ways that are usually taken for granted. The paper suggests that further work needs to be undertaken to explore how the concept of \'senses of gender\' can be applied to a broader rethinking of the relationship between gender and the body.Trans; Transgender; Transsexual; Sex; Gender; Sense; LGBT; Embodiment; Body; Mental Health

Chinese or White?: Racial Formation, Hybridity, and Chinatown in Sui Sin Far's 'Its Wavering Image'

Drawing upon Judith Butler's theory of performativity, this thesis offers an interpretation of "`Its Wavering Image'" that explains the biracial main character, Pan's, process of racialization. The argument is two fold: first, the paper contends that in this story, Sui Sin Far theorizes that race is performative rather than biological. Race does not come from characters' bodies, but is rather an incorporated performance of codes. Pan's race, then, depends not on her parentage or her biology, but on the "codes" she internalizes and embodies, codes that are fleshed out throughout the thesis through historical contextualization of San Francisco and Chinatown. Sui Sin Far roots "`Its Wavering Image'" firmly in space and place to emphasize the connections between Chinatown - a space that was zoned "Chinese" by the city - and racial identity formation. The second part of the argument deals with racial hybridity; the characters of "`Its Wavering Image'" cannot understand racial hybridity because their home spaces - and the boundaries between the spaces themselves - condition them to think of and recognize race in dualistic terms, in this case, Chinese or white. Ultimately, "`Its Wavering Image'" allows Sui Sin Far to undermine the notion that race is either stable or essential and to critique a system in which people must fit at one end of the binary or the other