Data, ideology, and the developing critical program of social informatics

The rapidly shifting ideological terrain of computing has a profound impact on Social Informatics's critical and empirical analysis of computerization movements. As these movements incorporate many of the past critiques concerning social fit and situational context leveled against them by Social Informatics research, more subtle and more deeply ingrained modes of ideological practice have risen to support movements of computerization. Among these, the current emphasis on the promises of data and data analytics presents the most obvious ideological challenge. In order to reorient Social Informatics in relation to these new ideological challenges, Louis Althusser's theory of ideology is discussed, with its implications for Social Informatics considered. Among these implications, a changed relationship between Social Informatics's critical stance and its reliance on empirical methods is advanced. Addressed at a fundamental level, the practice of Social Informatics comes to be reoriented in a more distinctly reflective and ethical direction

'When I click "ok" I become Sassy – I become a girl.' Young people and gender identity: Subverting the ‘body’ in massively multi-player online role-playing games

This article is available open access through the publisher’s website through the link below. Copyright @ 2012 Taylor & Francis.This article explores young people's practices in the virtual spaces of online gaming communities. Based on a five-year ethnographic study of virtual worlds, it considers how young people construct and maintain identities within virtual social systems. In particular, the article discusses digital gender practices and considers the potential that these games offer for their young users to engage in alternate gender identities. We argue that these digital spaces offer spaces for the imagination and can enhance agency and, potentially, resistance. However, digital identity is simultaneously no ‘liberated space’ and it incorporates norms and practices that often mirror those of the material world. We argue that this ‘porosity’ is an important tool through which young people come to understand gender identity

Graduate dress code: How undergraduates are planning to use hair, clothes and make-up to smooth their transition to the workplace

This article explores the relationship between students’ identities, their ideas about professional appearance and their anticipated transition to the world of work. It is based on a series of semi-structured interviews with 13 students from a vocationally-focused university in England. It was found that participants viewed clothing and appearance as an important aspect of their transition to the workplace. They believed that, if carefully handled, their appearance could help them to fit in and satisfy the expectations of employers, although some participants anticipated that this process of fitting in might compromise their identity and values. The article addresses students’ anticipated means of handling the tension between adapting to a new environment and ‘being themselves’. It is argued that the way this process is handled is intertwined with wider facets of identity – most notably those associated with gender.The article is based on research funded by the University of Derby. © 2015 IP Publishing Ltd. ((http://www.ippublishing.com). Reproduced by permission

Sharing a different voice: Attending to stories in collaborative writing

Through three stories, we hope to reveal how sometimes contradictory or unrecognizable aspects of our lives, selves, and stories can create tensions in the collaborative writing endeavor. We begin with a story that illuminates some of the narrative tensions that surface during a decade of writing collaboratively. In an effort to navigate these tensions, we explore two further stories in dialogue as a way to reveal how dominant narratives shape our lives and the stories we might tell. One aim of sharing these stories is to reveal how problematic ways of being are often inseparable from one’s cultural legacy. Making previously obscured narratives visible paves the way for imaginary leaps that are necessary for change. We hope these insights are useful for other writers and collaborators and those who seek caring, responsive, and nurturing writing relationships yet realize this journey can be problematic

‘Hey, you stylized woman there!’: An uncomfortable reflexive account of performative practices in the field

This article presents an uncomfortable reflexive account of a feminist poststructuralist research project on young women in Lagos, Nigeria who dress in what I call “hyper-feminine style.” It reflects on the messy processes by which I framed the research and recruited participants, and considers how the women who did or did not eventually take part exercised agency to resist the terms of my address. The article illustrates the usefulness of Butler’s (1997a) theoretical notions of “excitable discourse” and “performative interpellation” for poststructuralist reflexive practice, concerning as they do the unpredictable political and ontological effects of what one says and does

The Production of Hospitable Space: Commercial Propositions and Consumer Co-Creation in a Bar Operation

This paper examines the processes through which a commercial bar is transformed into a hospitable space. Drawing on a study of a venue patronized by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual/transgender consumers, it considers how social and commercial forms of hospitality are mobilized. The paper argues that hospitable space has an ideological, normative and situational dimension. More specifically, it suggests the bar’s operation is tied to a set of ideological conceptions, which become the potential basis of association and disassociation among consumers. It examines the forces and processes that shape who participates in the production and consumption of hospitality and how. Finally, it considers the situational, emergent nature of hospitality and the discontinuous production of hospitable space. Rather than focusing exclusively on host-guest or provider-customer relations, which dominates existing work on hospitality, the paper examines how consumers’ perceptions, actions and interactions shape the production of hospitality. By doing so the paper offers an alternative approach to understanding queer spaces, bar operation as well as hospitality