Third ISA Forum of Sociology (July 10-14, 2016)

JS-32

Gender-Technology Interface: Implications for Social Transformation and Development

RC09 Social Transformations and Sociology of Development (host committee)
RC32 Women in Society

Language: English

The later part of the 20th century along with the first decade of the 21st century have proven beyond doubt that the nature of social transformation and development can never be grasped both nationally and transnationally until and unless we focus on the complex gender-technology interface intensely. 
The purpose of this joint session is to highlight the relationships between gender and technology for exploring and explaining the ostensible neutrality of digitization of every sphere of everyday life both nationally and globally. Do “Digital technologies, based on brain rather than brawn, on networks rather than hierarchy, herald a new relationship between women and machines” (Wajcman, 2009)? 
This joint session intends to articulate the veiled embedded fact that technologies, even the newer ones like Domestic, ARTs and ICTs are not gender-neutral. And the multiple intersecting sources of subordination/oppression and a transnational character of the differential, contradictory and contested entitlements and burdens of these new technologies can be evident. The differences among women make perceptible the multiple positioning that constitutes everyday life and the power relations that are central to any development or social transformation. 
The session aims to encourage bringing forth comparative analyses of lived experiences especially of women both from the Global North and the Global South by drawing insights from intersectional paradigm within the broader framework of hyper-capitalism, i.e. globalization along with its embedded transnational character for the future. This session would also signal possible means and ways of using the new digital technology to create a more inclusive, equitable and freer world. Posters: