Workshop „Sisterhood on Twitter? ICT-based Collective Action and Narratives of Solidarity and Justice“ am 18.02.2019 in Tübingen

“Sisterhood on Twitter? ICT-based Collective Action and Narratives of Solidarity and Justice”

Der Workshop in englischer Sprache wird am 18. Februar 2019 ganztägig an der Universität Tübingen stattfinden. Wir freuen uns über 10-minütige Präsentationen; hierfür bitte ein kurzes Abstract bis zum 20. Januar 2019 an laura.schelenz@uni-tuebingen.de senden. Anmeldungen sind bis zum 10. Februar 2019 möglich.
Weitere Informationen finden Sie online.

Today, it seems that a hashtag is the means of choice to show solidarity with women/LGBTI* or advocate for gender justice. Social media and in particular Twitter are used by government bodies, civil society, activists, but also companies to promote gender equality. Examples of collective action that focus on the advancement of women’s and gender issues include the incredibly popular #MeToo initiative against sexual harassment in the United States, the relatable #YoTeCreo campaign in Spain, but also the #CzarnyProtest mobilization to push back against a proposed ban on abortion in Poland. Examples of top-down initiatives in support of gender justice include the UN campaign for IDEVAW #OrangetheWorld and the European Commission’s initiative #SayNoStopVAW. All of the above cases represents instances in which people claimed visibility by aggregating their voices and speaking up on a given issue. While in some cases more than in others, the overall impression emerging from these initiatives is that of a powerful show of horizontal democracy. However, the picture is probably not as clear-cut as it might look at first sight. Deeply rooted mechanisms of exclusion de facto prevent a large portion of the public from participating in these forms of collective action. Similarly, inequalities in the distribution of social media visibility seriously question the widespread assumption that anyone’s voice can actually be heard, as long as they tweet loud enough.
At the Centre for Ethics in Tübingen, we will discuss the following and related questions: What are mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion in ICT-based collective actions? What is the actual visibility that these kind of actions can hope to achieve? Who are the most visible actors within their narrow context? What narratives do these actors voice? How do the actors’ narratives of solidarity and justice clash with feminist ideas about gender equality and justice? We encourage Master’s students and Ph.D. candidates to join our workshop. The goal of the workshop is to develop new thoughts about the topic at hand, gather inspiration for your own work, and connect with academics working on similar issues.
If you would like to contribute a 10-minute presentation, please send your abstract of max. 500 words to the organizers of the workshop by January 20, 2019. If you would like to attend the workshop merely as a participant, please register with the organizers by February 10, 2019.
Organization:
Ms. Laura Schelenz, University of Tübingen, laura.schelenz@uni-tuebingen.de
Mr. Tommaso Trillò, University of Lodz, tommaso.trillo@uni.lodz.pl

Date and Place:
February 18, 2019
Room 1.13 in Wilhelmstraße 19, 72074 Tübingen

Preliminary Program:
10:00 Welcome and warm up
11:00 Lecture by Tommaso Trillò: “Can the Subaltern Tweet? Unfulfilled Promises of Participation and Strategies of Resistance”
12:00 Lunch break
13:00 Short presentations/working groups
15:00 Short break
15:30 Short presentations/working groups
17:00 Final discussion and wrap-up
18:00 Keynote Lecture by Prof. Dr. Tobias Matzner: “Algorithmic Subjectivities and Digital Publics”

Laura Schelenz is a Research Associate in the project “Ethical Implications of ICT export to sub-Saharan Africa” at the International Center for Ethics in the Sciences and Humanities, University of Tübingen. She is exploring ethical concerns about digitalization processes in Africa and is particularly interested in understanding the gender digital divide and mechanisms of exclusion. Schelenz holds an MA in Peace and Conflict Studies from Goethe University Frankfurt am Main and a BA in American Studies from Heidelberg University. She has spent time abroad in the USA and Hungary, and has previously worked in conflict research and human rights advocacy.

Tommaso Trillò is a Marie Skłodowska Curie Early Stage Researcher and PhD candidate at the University of Lodz, Poland, in the context of GRACE – Gender and Cultures of Equality in Europe (MSCA grant agreement No 675378). His main research focus is on the production of cultures of gender equality on social media platforms. His doctoral research project aims at exploring how key institutions at the EU supranational level and at the Italian national level contribute to the construction of ‘gender equality’ as a core European value through a comparative analysis of the narratives they advance on Twitter. Trillò holds an MSc in Migration Studies from the University of Oxford and a BA in Political Sciences from John Cabot University, Rome, Italy.