Cyberfeminism, technology, and international'development'

chapter seven of Cyberselves (2004)

Development in Practice, 2008

This article investigates the interaction between the processes of building development theory and development practice, arguing that theory must start with practice -and should not be top -down, starting with the 'outside gaze' of a supposedly detached academic or policy maker. The questions posed point to critiques of mainstream development narratives and notions of innovation through the diffusion of new technologies. The authors suggest that the assumptions embedded in mainstream development processes lead to unequal access to global and local markets, and that when they are imposed from the outside without a real understanding of the context, the development project is bound to fail. Parameters for assessing and evaluating outcomes also need to be based upon a close understanding of context -and this often comes through active involvement within it and not through being 'detached' and outside it. The assumption that an outside gaze is 'objective' is based in an implicitly colonial discourse, while building theory by being involved in the practice produces better methodologies for action and development.

This chapter explores the transition from audience studies to cyberethnography on the basis of the author’s own experience in doing research in computer- mediated communication and in teaching in online environments. The chapter describes her experience in developing methodologies for studying Internet inter- actions through theoretical perspectives by drawing on postcolonial feminist theories and critical cultural studies. Doing ethnography at online/offline inter- sections requires a hands-on approach, whereby the researcher works to build techno-mediated contexts while simultaneously living in them and also staying connected to related contexts offline. Such an immersive methodology allows the researcher to understand computer-mediated communication in global envi- ronments. In particular, the author refers to her experience of the “South Asian Women’s network (SAWnet) refusal,” as she developed her cyberethnographic methodologies in the early 1990s. She describes her experience in developing appropriate research methods to study such Internet-based global media.

Contemporary South Asia, 2003

Rhizomes Issue Four–http://www. rhizomes. net, 2002

In this chapter, we focus broadly on the mutual shaping of culture and technolo- gy in the context of a particular case in the history of the handloom industry of India through an examination of ruptures made visible in economic practices of consumption, production and marketing. We reflect on the questions raised, not so much from an intervention angle but from positioning what are referred to as “traditional knowledges” in contemporary times while problematizing the very conceptual categories of “traditional” and “modern.” We also implicitly and explicitly work against modern-day “received views” about technology (Slack and Wise, 2005, 2); we examine the loom as technology, embedded in everyday life where the interplay between economics and culture is inseparable. Thus, we take seriously the notion of technological cultures as articulated by Wise and Slack, and work through particular contexts and assemblages of handloom tech- nologies—mainly around the pit loom and the frame loom in rural South India. [Chapter four of "Cyberculture and the Subaltern" co-authored with B. Syamasundari and Seemanthini Niranjana].

Development in Practice , 2020

This paper examines how the production of ”asli” commodity through a local/global dialectic in contemporary global facing Sumba weaving contributes to shifts and contradictions in gender roles as they are shaped simultaneously through local community needs and through a global facing westernized patriarchal business ethos. The increasing global north facing integration of global south production communities into the world markets for instance, leads to a masculinization of management and global facing leadership while along with a feminization of the local production process. Evidence for observations were drawn from over fifty indepth interviews and onsite observation.