[AISWorld] Special Issue CfP: Feminist and Queer Approaches to ICT4D

[Silvia Masiero]

Dear Colleagues,


Hope you are well! Please find below a Special Issue Call for Papers
on *Feminist
and Queer Approaches to ICT4D*, for the journal Information Technology for
Development, which may be of interest. The deadline for submissions is 30
June 2022.


The Call for Papers can be found here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LzIVzcTNWReu7uW4ug-1iWUjQtSQPCYD

All the best!


Silvia (with co-editors)



*Special Issue Call for Papers:*

*Feminist and Queer Approaches to ICT4D*



Information Technology for Development
<https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/titd20/current>




*Submission Deadline: 30 June 2022*




Guest Editors:

‘

Sara Vannini, University of Sheffield, s.vannini at sheffield.ac.uk

Silvia Masiero, University of Oslo, silvima at ifi.uio.no

Ayushi Tandon, Mahindra University, ayushi.tandon at mahindrauniversity.edu.in

Charmaine Wellington, University of Sussex, cwellington at sussex.ac.uk

Katherine Wyers, University of Oslo, katherwy at ifi.uio.no

Kristin Braa, University of Oslo, kbraa at ifi.uio.no



The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many sectors globally to move online.
Activities related to work, education, and entertainment have drastically
increased their digital presence. The stronger reliance on digital
practices, while assisting some, has perpetuated and amplified many of the
existing historic inequalities generated by the legacy of colonial, racist,
classist and sexist societal structures. Combined with the already ongoing
processes of democracy erosion, increased disregard for human rights as it
has been, for example, in most countries’ politics towards migrants and the
Black Lives Matter protests (Gomes, 2020), disinformation campaigns, and
attacks to science, increased isolation and digitization are exacerbating
the vulnerability of the most marginalized and oppressed in society
(Qureshi, 2021).

Recent evidence has shown how the pandemic has brought especially harmful
consequences along gendered lines. First, gender-based violence has
increased during the pandemic (IOM, 2020). Second, gender affects the
burden of unpaid care work, which has become even more pervasive. Third,
given the likelihood to be discriminated against in their professional and
personal lives, LGBTQIA+ people have also been found to not having their
basic necessities met during the pandemic: they generally have lower-income
jobs that do not allow for remote-working, they may be estranged from their
family of origins, and they may have trouble accessing gender-affirming
healthcare – essential to their health and well-being but often delayed as
considered non-essential during the crisis (Katz-Wise, 2020). In the light
of adverse digital incorporation (Heeks, 2021), initiatives to help
alleviate some of the challenges that communities are facing during these
times are likely to be led by care workers, a position that is usually
gender-influenced (IOM, 2020; Malcom and Sawani, 2020).



Studies in and beyond the field of ICT4D do recognize the relevance of
fighting inequalities, leveraging on ICTs to do so, but also critically
analyze their role in perpetrating or dismantling power. Furthermore,
issues of gender herein have been mostly treated as a binary category (men
*vs* women) to be incorporated into pre-existing systems designed within
existing patriarchal structures of power (Hentschel et al., 2016; Sultana
et al., 2018). There is a pressing need for research in the ICT4D field
that challenges existing power structures, including adopting a critical
and feminist approach to gender (Kumar et al., 2019; Spiel et al., 2019);
proposing perspectives that dismantle existing structures of oppression
(hooks, 2014); investigating the design of new, disruptive ICTs/IS by
vulnerable and marginalized groups (DeVito et al., 2020; Perez, 2019; Webb
& Buskens, 2014). We invite papers that tackle these themes through a
critical, feminist lens, encouraging decolonial approaches (Ali, 2014;
Bidwell et al., 2016).



Paper topics include, but are not limited to:



   - Papers employing a feminist/queer theoretical lens to investigate
   Social Implications of ICTs/IS in the Global South or with
   underserved/vulnerable populations and their intersections;



   - Information literacy practices in the Global South or with
   underserved/vulnerable populations and their intersections informed by
   feminist/queer frameworks;



   - ICTs and human rights responses/practices informed by feminist/queer
   frameworks;



   - Data privacy and security issues in the Global South or with
   underserved/vulnerable populations and their intersections informed by
   feminist/queer frameworks;



   - Implications of ICTs/IS on gender identities in the Global South, and
   its geographical reach and/or cross-border digital flows;



   - Other papers using Southern Feminism/feminist/queer frameworks applied
   to Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries.





Ali, M. (2014). Towards a decolonial computing. In: Ambiguous Technologies:
Philosophical Issues, Practical Solutions, Human Nature, International
Society of Ethics and Information Technology, pp. 28-35.

Bidwell, N. J., Hussan, T. S., Gill, S., Awori, K., & Lindtner, S. (2016).
Decolonising Technology Design. Proceedings of the First African Conference
on Human Computer Interaction, pp. 256–259.

DeVito, M. A., Walker, A. M., Lustig, C., Ko, A. J., Spiel, K., Ahmed, A.
A., Allison, K., Scheuerman, M., Dym, B., Brubaker, J.R. .. & Gray, M. L.
(2020, April). Queer in HCI: Supporting LGBTQIA+ Researchers and Research
Across Domains. In *Extended Abstracts of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human
Factors in Computing Systems*, pp. 1-4.

Gomes, S. (2020). Brazilian counter-surveillance collective action in a
data sensitive era. Datactive Blog,
https://data-activism.net/2020/06/bigdatasur-brazilian-counter-surveillance-collective-action-in-a-data-sensitive-era/
.

Heeks, R. (2021). From Digital Divide to Digital Justice in the Global
South: Conceptualising Adverse Digital Incorporation. Proceedings of the
First IFIP 9.4 Virtual Conference, 26-28 May 2021.

Hentschel, J., Ahmed, S. I., Hussain, F., Ahmed, N., & Kumar, N. (2017,
November). Working with Women in ICTD. In Proceedings of the Ninth
International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and
Development (pp. 1-5).



hooks,  bell. (2014). Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (3 edition).
Routledge.



IOM, International Organization for Migration. (2020). *COVID-19 Analytical
Snapshot: Gender dimensions* (No. 25; Understanding the Migration &
Mobility Implications of COVID-19). UN Migration.
<https://www.iom.int/covid19>https://www.iom.int/covid19



Katz-Wise, S. L. (2020, April 30). COVID-19 and the LGBTQ+ community:
Rising to unique challenges. Harvard Health Blog.
<https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/covid-19-and-the-lgbtq-community-rising-to-unique-challenges-2020043019721>
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/covid-19-and-the-lgbtq-community-rising-to-unique-challenges-2020043019721



Kumar, N., Karusala, N., Ismail, A., Wong-Villacres, M., & Vishwanath, A.
(2019). Engaging Feminist Solidarity for Comparative Research, Design, and
Practice. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 3(CSCW),
1-24.



Malcom, K., Sawani, J. (2020). Racial Disparities in the Time of COVID-19.
Michigan University Health Lab.
<https://labblog.uofmhealth.org/rounds/racial-disparities-time-of-covid-19>
https://labblog.uofmhealth.org/rounds/racial-disparities-time-of-covid-19.



Perez, C. C. (2019). Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men
(First Printing edition). Harry N. Abrams.



Qureshi, S. (2021). Pandemics within the pandemic: confronting
socio-economic inequities in a datafied world. Information Technology for
Development, 27(2), 151-170.



Spiel, K., Keyes, O., & Barlas, P. (2019). Patching gender: Non-binary
utopias in HCI. In Extended Abstracts of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human
Factors in Computing Systems, 1-11.



Sultana, S., Guimbretière, F., Sengers, P., & Dell, N. (2018, April).
Design within a patriarchal society: Opportunities and challenges in
designing for rural women in Bangladesh. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI
Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-13).



Webb, D. A., & Buskens, D. I. (Eds.). (2014). Women and ICT in Africa and
the Middle East: Changing Selves, Changing Societies. Zed Books.



*Timeline*

Deadline for submission: June 30, 2022

Notification of decision: September 30, 2022

Deadline for revised papers: December 30, 2022

Notification of final acceptance: February 28, 2023

Tentative publication date: June 2023





*Submission*



Submission website: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/itd



Please select “Special Issue – Feminist and Queer Approaches to ICT4D” in
the submission process