News
- New paper: “Evolving Spatialities of Digital Life”
I’m excited to announce the Dr. Casey Lynch and I have a new paper, “Evolving spatialities of digital life: Troubling the smart city/home divide” out in Digital Geography and Society. This project came together after Casey and I met as a contributing authors for an edited volume, Artificial Intelligence and the City (ed. Cugurullo, Caprotti, Cook, Karvonen, McGuirk, and Marvin), in 2022 and recognized potential for collaboration. It’s been a pleasure to work with Casey, and we are very proud of the shape these ideas have taken.
Cite:
Lynch, C. R., & Sweeney, M. E. (2024). Evolving spatialities of digital life: Troubling the smart city/home divide. Digital Geography and Society, 6, 100085. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.diggeo.2024.100085Abstract
While feminist geographers have long aimed to trouble conceptions of the city/home (and, by extension, public/private) divides, the digital city and the digital home are still often theorized separate phenomena within much digital geography literature. Drawing on previous work on feminist home-city geographies, this paper proposes four analytical frames for reflecting on the relationship between urban and domestic space in digital geographies: governance, domestication, thresholds, and dwelling. The paper explores each lens through a critical review of recent literature in digital geographies and related fields. It weaves this review through a speculative reading of the Eco Delta Smart City, an experimental development building the smart city from the home up in Busan, South Korea. We show how each lens calls attention to distinct sets of questions, actors, agendas, and relations–thus refusing any single reading of the project or of the broader trends around digitalization of which it is a part. In the process, we trace how digitalization does not simply trouble existing spatial categories, but rather makes them manifest in new ways for differently situated subjects. - Interview with UA Teaching Academy
1/18/2024
I was my pleasure to be featured as the Faculty Spotlight for the new University of Alabama Teaching Academy’s January newsletter!
The UA Teaching Academy supports the institution’s strategic goal of providing a premier education characterized by outstanding teaching. It serves as an instructional resource hub and innovation center dedicated to promoting equitable and supportive learning environments and high-quality, evidence-based instruction.
In this interview I share about my educational journey and discuss strategies and lessons I have learned throughout 15 years of teaching in Higher Education. It was a pleasure to talk with Dr. Claire Major and reflect on these questions; thanks, folks!
- New Semester, New Role: Associate Director of SLIS
New Semester, New Role: Associate Director of SLIS8/18/2023I’m happy to announce that I am officially stepping into the role of Associate Director of the School of Library and Information Studies here at UA. In this role, I’ll have the opportunity to guide the onboarding of new SLIS students, lead oversight of MLIS programmatic assessment, and assist with other SLIS administrative operations. I’m thrilled to join our amazing leadership team here at SLIS and contribute to building a positive culture for our faculty and student communities. Roll tide!
- It’s official! Book contract with Polity Press
I’m excited to announce that I have officially signed a book contract with Polity Press for a critical project about voice assistants, surveillance capitalism, issues of design, ethics, and the future of voice as a ubiquitous interface. The book is provisionally titled, Voice Assistants, until I find that catchy, sexy title that eludes me at the moment. A brief summary of the book contents for those interested:
This book traces the development of voice assistant technologies melding technical, social, and political-economic perspectives to consider issues such as: the underlying big data infrastructures that voice assistants both depend on and shore up; the design and marketing of voice assistants as domestic/caregiving technologies; how ideologies of gender, race, and class are embedded in the design of voice assistants; the imagined uses (and futures) of voice assistants by the tech companies that design them; the extended data-gathering and reach of voice assistants both within and outside of the home; the ethical and privacy implications of voice assistants; the political economic landscape that frames voice assistants as ideal technological solutions for personal and home management; and the possibilities for reimagining and resisting voice assistants and the paradigm of surveillance capitalism they are imbricated in.
Stay tuned for updates on the project!
- Console-ing Passions 2022
My first time attending the Console-ing Passions conference last week was an absolute delight. Returning to an in-person conference after several years of virtual attendance felt really exciting, and meeting this incredible group of feminist and queer media researchers made the environment feel welcoming, safe, and full of possibility (in a moment where that feeling is *desperately* needed).
Big shout-outs to the conference organizers Mel Stanfill and Anastasia Salter and their team of exceptional graduate students for pulling off a fun and informative event. You all crushed it.
The abstract and talk for my conference paper, Refacing Gender in Digital Assistant Technologies, is now available online.
Looking forward to seeing everyone in Calgary next year at Console-ing Passions 2023!
- Illinois Information Literacy Summit- keynote available!
I had the pleasure of keynoting the 20th Annual Information Literacy Summit on April 29th. The symposium theme, “Expanding the Conversation: Digital, Media, and Civic Literacies In and Out of the Library” was really generative and drew out an amazing group of attendees (over 500 registrants) from all over the country. The abstract for my keynote, “Facing Your Computers: Algorithmic Literacy as Praxis” is below- I will post the link to the recorded talk when it is available for the organizers. The recorded talk and transcript are now available on the conference website.
Big thank you to the organizers for this event- they were some of the kindest folks I’ve worked with.Facing Our Computers: Algorithmic Literacies as Praxis | Transcript
Miriam E. Sweeney, Associate Professor, School of Library and Information Studies, University of Alabama
“Facing Our Computers: Algorithmic Literacies as Praxis” is a call to turn our attention to the current technological environment, characterized by increased reliance on algorithmic technologies, and grapple with it as part and parcel of the broader social, political, and economic landscape. Borrowing from Paulo Freire’s (1972) definition of praxis as “reflection and action directed at the structure to be transformed”, I invite us to consider how ”facing our computers” (i.e. developing critical algorithmic literacies as a reflective tool) might help LIS “expand the conversation” around algorithmic culture in our professional roles in order to better formulate actions and responses that lead us to better collective futures.