Conference: "Information Technology, Transnational Democracy and Gender" 14-16 November

Conference: "Information Technology, Transnational Democracy and Gender" /Luleå, Sweden / November 14-16 November, 2003

For more information, please contact:

Christina Mörtberg,
Luleå University of Technology,
phone +46 (0)920 49 21 17, fax +46 (0)920 49 18 66,
e-mail christina.mortberg@arb.luth.se

or

Rebecka Näslund,
Luleå University of Technology,
phone +46 (0)920 49 30 24,
e-mail rebecka.naslund@arb.luth.se

The conference is organized by the Nordic (including Estonia, Lithuania and Northwest Russia) Network for Research 1999-2003 ’Information Technology, Transnational Democracy and Gender’, supported by the Nordic Academy for Advanced Study (Norfa).

The overall theme for the conference is Information Technology, Transnational Democracy and Gender. The ITDG, Information Technology, Transnational Democracy and Gender, is a multidisciplinary network of researchers, which during its existence has focused on various topics within the areas of information technology, democracy and gender. The previous workshops and conferences organized in the network show that there are various approaches to feminism. The agenda of the closing symposium will be to explore and understand some of the different feminist projects, and re (present) various strategies towards the different projects.

Some major issues, which the conference aims to address, are:

1. Feminist Policy Issues in a Technological Order In a changing society understandings of technology and politics become crucial. The aim of this workshop is to cast light on feminist issues, and to focus on what and how feminists want to change, and to what? Is mainstreaming a strategy for integration of feminist issues in science and technology?

What does mainstreaming imply? Do we have experiences with mainstreaming from other areas of our society?

2. Information technology in everyday life: ethnographic approach Information and communication technology intertwines with people’s everyday practices, forms of thinking, identities and communities - while people work, seek information, participate in discourses and make cultural representations, consume, entertain themselves and spend leisure. The practices are daily and local, but they are also shaped by wider social, cultural and textual practices. The idea of the workshop is to examine information technology, gender and everyday life.

3. Women in and on the Net - visibility, work and community building An underlying principle for the citizenship of the information society is equal access to e.g. information resources and political participation both in the society at large and in the decisions of the information society on a local level. It means also a social practice in a civil society. Some of the issues implied in this are: How can Internet and on-line communities be used to empower women with the freedom to choose their own future and combat exclusion? Is the use of techno-biography a tool for understanding more about the place of technology in everyday life and to deconstruct gender-technology relationships?

4. Enhance understandings of (techno)politics.

One way to achieve changes concerning issues of gender, technology and politics is by enhancing the understanding of (techno) politics. In order to enhance this it is important to explore questions such as: How do feminist researchers make a difference? How can things be different? What are the feminist contributions towards critique of society for creating a responsible and sustainable technology? What makes such critique feminist instead of merely critical?

The conference welcomes participants to present papers, provocations, dialogues, posters, etc and to provide a forum for Nordic and international collaborations.