Papers by Irene Fubara-Manuel
This project intervenes on the increased policing of borders using digital technologies. It is an... more This project intervenes on the increased policing of borders using digital technologies. It is an autoethnographic practice-led research project that investigates the application of biometric surveillance technologies in identity capture and verification of black migrants. Consequently, it focuses on the racial implications of these new forms of surveillance and the resistances necessary for black migrant survival. This study Research is a communal process. The people mentioned below have contributed intellectual, emotional, and financial support, that brought Animating Opacity into existence. First and foremost, I express my deepest gratitude to Shawna Ferris and Liz Millward, who have encouraged me right from my years as an undergraduate. I am grateful for the contributions of The School of Media, Film and Music (MFM) for the International Research Scholarship and research funding for that made the ONCA Gallery exhibition of Dreams of Disguise a reality. I am also grateful for the research centers at MFM-The Humanities Lab, Centre for Material Digital Culture, and the Centre for Cultural Studies-that created spaces for me to share and develop my work. I am appreciative of the support of faculty at MFM. Thank you, Caroline Bassett,
Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds, 2020
Biometric technologies deployed at the border virtualize this space in such a manner that frontie... more Biometric technologies deployed at the border virtualize this space in such a manner that frontiers and their lines of demarcation are inscribed onto bodies of migrants. This disappearance of the border as a geographic zone, as addressed in critical border studies, has incited multiple theories. Among these is the theory of borderscapes in which, the suffix ‘-scape’, meaning ‘to shape’, accounts for the hegemonic and counter-hegemonic processes of building national frontiers. This article addresses gamescapes ‐ the designed virtual environment of video games ‐ as a zone in which migrants can perform artistic interventions and enact their mobility within borders. The author positions her walking simulator game Dreams of Disguise: Errantry (2018) as one of such gamescapes. Through the analysis of the game, this article addresses the implications of purposeful movement through the virtual border for black migrants.
Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds, 2020
Biometric technologies deployed at the border virtualize this space in such a manner that frontie... more Biometric technologies deployed at the border virtualize this space in such a manner that frontiers and their lines of demarcation are inscribed onto bodies of migrants. This disappearance of the border as a geographic zone, as addressed in critical border studies, has incited multiple theories. Among these is the theory of borderscapes in which, the suffix ‘-scape’, meaning ‘to shape’, accounts for the hegemonic and counter-hegemonic processes of building national frontiers. This article addresses gamescapes ‐ the designed virtual environment of video games ‐ as a zone in which migrants can perform artistic interventions and enact their mobility within borders. The author positions her walking simulator game Dreams of Disguise: Errantry (2018) as one of such gamescapes. Through the analysis of the game, this article addresses the implications of purposeful movement through the virtual border for black migrants.
Networking Knowledge: Journal of the MeCCSA Postgraduate Network, 2017
This article examines the representations of race and male same-sex desire portrayed by black gay... more This article examines the representations of race and male same-sex desire portrayed by black gay male characters on the adult animated television show, The Boondocks (2005). Centralizing its analysis of The Boondocks as a canonical text of black gay representation within animation, this paper highlights the signs of the male matriarch, booty warrior, and homothug and their iterations in three other animated TV shows—The Cleveland Show (2009), American Dad! (2005), and Chozen (2014). This article posits that these signs connote the ideology of hegemonic masculinity and its racial ordering. Drawing on Halberstam’s (2011) ‘revolting animation’, Ngai’s (2005) ‘animatedness’, and Wells’ (1998) ‘hierarchies of masculinities’, this article addresses these contradicting signs of black gay masculinities within the aforementioned animated television shows, situating them within respective sexual and racial politics in the United States.
African Diaspora, 2020
The current system of the surveillance of migrants relies on biometric capture. To be captured is... more The current system of the surveillance of migrants relies on biometric capture. To be captured is to be codified into machine-readable representations. This paper merges technological codifications with political discourse to explore the disproportionate capturing of black migrants in the UK. Using the historical treatment of Nigerian migrants in the UK as an illustration, this paper interrogates how contemporary technologies are used to codify and confine black migrants. This paper explores works from digital artists – Keith Piper and Joy Buolamwini – to address this codification of blackness using biometric technology. It calls for new technological cultures of coding that centre the disruption of violent systems of capture. Failure is defined as this disruption of hegemonic systems of codification and capture that aim to subjugate black communities. This paper stresses that it is only when technologies of capture fail that black and migrant communities can truly experience digita...
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Papers by Irene Fubara-Manuel