My, is that Cyborg a little bit Queer?

This piece of work is a response to the following question: ‘Critically assess the importance, or otherwise, of Donna Haraway’s “manifesto” for early twenty-first century feminists’. Based on Stein and Plummer’s outline of queer theory in their essay, “I can’t even think straight”: “Queer” Theory and the Missing Sexual Revolution in Sociology (Stein and Plummer 1996). This piece compares and contrasts different aspects of queer theory (sociological, ideological, political and ontological) with Haraway’s ‘manifesto’ in order to investigate the possibilities of a cyberqueer theory: to ‘queer’ (as a verb) the ‘cyborg’. Whilst attempting to interrelate both the notion of the ‘cyborg’ and ‘queer theory’, this piece explores feminist issues concerning gender, sexuality, identity, representation and the body. Ultimately, the piece argues how feminism might benefit from cyberqueer ideas in rethinking through these issues whilst being aware of its material ramifications

My, is that Cyborg a little Queer? : (essay competition winner)

This piece of work is a response to the following question: ‘Critically assess the importance, or otherwise, of Donna Haraway's "manifesto" for early twenty-first century feminists'. Based on Stein and Plummer's outline of queer theory in their essay, "I can't even think straight": "Queer" Theory and the Missing Sexual Revolution in Sociology (Stein and Plummer 1996). This piece compares and contrasts different aspects of queer theory (sociological, ideological, political and ontological) with Haraway's 'manifesto' in order to investigate the possibilities of a cyberqueer theory: to 'queer' (as a verb) the 'cyborg'. Whilst attempting to interrelate both the notion of the 'cyborg' and 'queer theory', this piece explores feminist issues concerning gender, sexuality, identity, representation and the body. Ultimately, the piece argues how feminism might benefit from cyberqueer ideas in rethinking through these issues whilst being aware of its material ramifications

A digital future for children?

Adi Kuntsman and Esperanza Miyake argue that we live in a time where the digital is often adopted without question. They investigate the reasons behind parents’ increasing digital disengagement, and the impact of this on children’s digital futures. Adi and and Esperanza¹ are based in the UK at Manchester Metropolitan University, where they conduct an ongoing investigation of digital disengagement at the intersection of media studies, digital studies, and critical social research. Their earlier collaborative work examined the relations between raciality and queer cultures

Paradoxes of Digital Disengagement

Life is increasingly governed and mediated through digital and smart technologies, platforms, big data and algorithms. However, the reasons, practices and impact of how the digital is used by different institutions are often deeply linked to social oppression and injustice. Similarly, the ability to resist these digital impositions is based on inequality and privilege. Challenging the ways in which we are increasingly dependent on the digital, this book raises a set of provocative and urgent questions: in a world of compulsory digitality is there an opt out button? Where, when, how, why and to whom is it available? Answering these questions has become even more relevant since the COVID-19 pandemic. In response, the book puts forward the concept of ‘digital disengagement’ which is explored across six key areas of digitisation: health; citizenship; education; consumer culture; labour; and the environment. Part I examines the difficulty of opting out of compulsory digitality in a world where most things are digital by default. From health apps, algorithmic decision-making to learning analytics, opting out comes with a set of troubling consequences. Part II turns to several examples of disconnection and disengagement. The chapters reveal how phenomena like digital detoxes, time-management apps and online ‘green’ spaces are co-opted by the very digital systems one is trying to resist. The book critiques issues relating to digital surveillance, algorithmic discrimination and biased tech, corporatisation and monetisation of data, exploitative digital labour, digitalised self-discipline and destruction of the environment. As an interdisciplinary piece of work, the book will be useful to any scholar and activist in Digital, Internet and Social Media Studies; Digital Sociology and Social Policy; Digital Health; Media, Popular and Communication Studies; Consumer culture; and Environment Studies

Politicizing Motorcycles: racialized capital of technology, techno-Orientalism and Japanese temporality

This article politicizes the racialization of motorcycles and critically examines the representation and material consumption of Japanese raciality and technology through motorcyclic discourses. First, referring to online discourses surrounding Harley-Davidson and Japanese motorcycles, I argue that these essentialize and racialize motorcycles, which in turn, through their material consumption, become a technology for classifying, racializing and organizing sociocultural systems of western cultural hegemony. I suggest the term racialized capital of technology as a way of examining and politicizing the ideological-material intersection of racialized technology. Second, through an analysis of Honda’s contemporary advertising discourse (United Kingdom, United States, Japan, World websites), I focus further on the racialization of technology by exploring the ways in which Japan is temporalized through technology. I re-think techno-Orientalist ideas on the future and technology as being ‘Japanized’ and, instead, explore the Japanization of the past through technology, or the historicization of Japanese technology. I argue that Honda’s dual connectivity to the past and the future marks a destabilization of techno-Orientalist discourses of Japan and technology, providing a counter-narrative against western cultural hegemony. However, I am also critical of such discourses and consider some of the historical and ontological tensions surrounding the representation of Japan and technology, relating these to Japanese temporal imperialism and capitalism

We are living in a 'digital dark age' - here's how to protect your photos, videos and other data

If you have grown up with social media, chances are you have taken more photos in the last couple of decades than you will ever remember. When mobile phones suddenly became cameras too, social media turned into a community photo album, with memories kept online forever and ever. Or so we thought. In 2019, MySpace lost 12 years’ worth of music and photos, affecting over 14 million artists and 50 million tracks. If Instagram or the entire internet suddenly disappeared, would you be able to access your precious memories

Understanding Music and Sexuality through Ethnography: Dialogues between Queer Studies and Music

Basé sur les expériences que j’ai pu faire lors d’un travail de terrain réalisé pour une étude menée entre 2003 et 2005 sur le Choeur Lesbien et Gay de Manchester, cet article se propose d’analyser l’utilité de la recherche ethnographique quand on s’intéresse aux rapports entre musique et sexualité. Je cherche ici à montrer que les enquêtes ethnographiques peuvent constituer une méthode queer d’analyse de la musique. Je présente tout d’abord les difficultés pratiques que j’ai rencontrées au début de mon travail de terrain, en montrant que celles-ci peuvent peut-être expliquer les problèmes conceptuels qui se posent lorsque l’on étudie ainsi la question du rapport entre musique et sexualité. Je présente ensuite la manière dont j’ai pu surmonter ces problèmes, en rejoignant le choeur en tant que soprane. Autrement dit : en pratiquant l’observation participante, usant donc de méthodes qualitatives. Je montre de cette façon que les enquêtes ethnographiques peuvent permettre d’interroger la connexion établie théoriquement entre la musique et l’idée du queer, qui peut apparaître comme restrictive, dans la mesure où elle considère que ce type de consommation subculturelle de musicalité et de sexualité relève d’une forme de sociabilité érotique. En étudiant le quotidien dans sa « banalité », je montre que les études ethnographiques peuvent nous permettre de reconceptualiser les liens qui attachent la musique aux idéologies et discours portant sur la sexualité. Ainsi, cet article présente la recherche ethnographique comme une méthode queer d’analyse de la musique, qui se déplace du champ des questions théoriques portant sur le genre et l’érotisme à celui des pratiques quotidiennes. Son objectif est d’encourager le développement de la recherche empirique dans le domaine des études sur la musique et la sexualité, pour permettre de mieux rapprocher la théorie queer de la musique.Based on my fieldwork experiences for a research I conducted in Manchester with the Manchester Lesbian and Gay Chorus (MLGC) between 2003 and 2005, this article demonstrates the usefulness of ethnographical research when investigating issues surrounding music and sexuality. The article suggests that ethnographies can be used as a queer mode of analyzing music. To explore this idea, I begin by examining some of the practical research problems I faced at the onset of my fieldwork, and suggest how these reflect the possible reasons behind conceptual problems surrounding the study of music and sexuality. By discussing how I overcame these problems through joining the MLGC as a soprano engaged in participant observation and qualitative research methods, I argue that ethnographies can loosen what can be a restrictive theoretical connection between music and the idea of "queerness" as being about the subcultural consumption of sexuality/musicality through a form of erotic sociality. By studying the everyday and "mundane", I suggest that ethnographies can allow us to reconceptualise ways in which music connects the cultural and social politics of sexuality. Therefore, this article presents ethnographical research as a queer methodology for the analysis of music, one which moves beyond theoretical questions of gender and the erotic and instead, moves towards the practices of everyday life. The purpose of the piece is to urge more empirical research to be undertaken in studies of music and sexuality in order to bring queer theory and music closer together

Singing out Together: Towards a Queer Ethnography of Music and Sexuality.

This thesis seeks to understand the relationship between music and sexuality within the context of urban lesbian and gay music and music-making practices. Theoretically, I am mainly informed by queer musicology, popular music studies, cultural and subcultural studies, and the sociology of music. Building upon existing queer and feminist understandings of music and sexuality, I problematise both the conflation of sexuality and gender in music, and the conceptualisation of sexuality as part of an erotic exchange in music. How might we think about the relationship between music and sexuality beyond questions of gender and the erotic? I attempt to answer this question through an ethnography of the Manchester Lesbian and Gay Chorus, based in the city of Manchester. My practical research follows other ethnographers like Ruth Finnegan and Tia De Nora who chronicle the social process of music-making in everyday life. Through qualitative interviews and participant observations conducted with members of the MLGC, this project explores what part music plays in affirming, re-affirming or otherwise challenging the position of lesbians and gay men within a contemporary British city like Manchester. What kind of social, cultural, and political conditions are necessary in bringing music and sexuality together? During the course of my investigations, I also investigate what terms like queer, queerness, and queering mean in relation to the music-sexuality relationship. What does queer mean within the context of lesbian and gay music and music-making practices? What is queerness in music, and how might we read it? What does queering music and queering through music entail? This project seeks to answer such questions by taking an interdisciplinary approach to the ethnographic material and situating itself within the existing literature on music and sexuality

Why binge-watching TV might not replace weekly instalments

Netflix is known for unleashing a whole series in one go, often provoking a mass entertainment feeding frenzy as people binge-watch entire seasons in one sitting. Think about the period drama Bridgerton, dished out on a single online viewing plate (quite aptly) on Christmas Day, 2020. All good for viewing figures

Long Covid : online patient narratives, public health communication and vaccine hesitancy

Introduction: This study combines quantitative and qualitative analyses of social media data collected through three key stages of the pandemic, to highlight the following: ●'First wave' (March to May, 2020): negative consequences arising from a disconnect between official health communications, and unofficial Long Covid sufferers’ narratives online. ●'Second wave' (October 2020 to January 2021): closing the 'gap' between official health communications and unofficial patient narratives, leading to a better integration between patient voice, research and services. ●'Vaccination phase' (January 2021, early stages of the vaccination programme in the UK): continuing and new emerging concerns. Methods: We adopted a mixed methods approach involving quantitative and qualitative analyses of 1.38 million posts mentioning long-term symptoms of Covid-19, gathered across social media and news platforms between 1 January 2020 and 1 January 2021, on Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, and Forums. Our inductive thematic analysis was informed by our discourse analysis of words, and sentiment analysis of hashtags and emojis. Results: Results indicate that the negative impacts arise mostly from conflicting definitions of Covid-19, and fears around the Covid-19 vaccine for Long Covid sufferers. Key areas of concern are: time/duration; symptoms/testing; emotional impact; lack of support and resources. Conclusions: Whilst Covid-19 is a global issue, specific socio-cultural, political and economic contexts mean patients experience Long Covid at a localised level, needing appropriate localised responses. This can only happen if we build a knowledge base that begins with the patient, ultimately informing treatment and rehabilitation strategies for Long Covid