Gillian Youngs – författare

Feminist International Relations Through a Technospatial Lens is a rich, thought-provoking and wide-ranging assessment of power and empowerment in the digital age.

Artificial intelligence (AI) innovations have launched a new era of policy and public engagement with the workings of digital economy and the scale of its possibilities and risks. How beneficial will its data-driven technological advances be across scientific, medical and commercial sectors and what are the dangers of its increasing capacities to replace human presence and interactions with convincing replications? These are the kinds of big new questions societies confront. Answers will need to draw on deep understanding of technospatial and technosocial dimensions of digital economy and how it has extended, deepened and transformed automation as a continuing feature of earlier industrial economy transitions. These are the central themes addressed in this book, which presents a new analysis supported by a range of material related to more than a quarter of a century of Gillian Youngs’ applied research and practice on power and empowerment in the digital world. The book examines the complex masculinist abstractions and structures that have framed technology as intrinsic to the momentum of change in unquestioned ways in political economy and its state and market drivers, including in research, policy, corporate and profit-driven strategies. To transcend these abstractions and open up pathways for full sociotechnical interrogation of the promise and hazards of advances such as AI, the author’s distinctive critical approach combines insights from feminist theory and practice, political economy and media and communications.

Contributing to advancing feminist international relations and consolidating its distinctive place in cutting-edge social and political science, this book will speak to scholars and students of international relations, politics, women’s and gender studies, as well as geography, sociology and media and communications.

Feminist International Relations Through a Technospatial Lens is a rich, thought-provoking and wide-ranging assessment of power and empowerment in the digital age.

Artificial intelligence (AI) innovations have launched a new era of policy and public engagement with the workings of digital economy and the scale of its possibilities and risks. How beneficial will its data-driven technological advances be across scientific, medical and commercial sectors and what are the dangers of its increasing capacities to replace human presence and interactions with convincing replications? These are the kinds of big new questions societies confront. Answers will need to draw on deep understanding of technospatial and technosocial dimensions of digital economy and how it has extended, deepened and transformed automation as a continuing feature of earlier industrial economy transitions. These are the central themes addressed in this book, which presents a new analysis supported by a range of material related to more than a quarter of a century of Gillian Youngs’ applied research and practice on power and empowerment in the digital world. The book examines the complex masculinist abstractions and structures that have framed technology as intrinsic to the momentum of change in unquestioned ways in political economy and its state and market drivers, including in research, policy, corporate and profit-driven strategies. To transcend these abstractions and open up pathways for full sociotechnical interrogation of the promise and hazards of advances such as AI, the author’s distinctive critical approach combines insights from feminist theory and practice, political economy and media and communications.

Contributing to advancing feminist international relations and consolidating its distinctive place in cutting-edge social and political science, this book will speak to scholars and students of international relations, politics, women’s and gender studies, as well as geography, sociology and media and communications.

Introduction: 20th-21st century imaginings and realities Section 1: Time/Space Frameworks 1. States and Markets: understanding geospatial time 2. Virtual Realities: exploring sociospatiality 3. The Political Economy of Time: historical time, speed and mobility Section 2: Borders and Inequality 4. Transcendence and Communication 5. Inequality as Driver 6. Embedding Patriarchy: feminism and inequality in the Internet era Section 3: Technofutures and Power 7. Complex Hegemony in the 21st Century: power and inequality Conclusion

Introduction: 20th-21st century imaginings and realities Section 1: Time/Space Frameworks 1. States and Markets: understanding geospatial time 2. Virtual Realities: exploring sociospatiality 3. The Political Economy of Time: historical time, speed and mobility Section 2: Borders and Inequality 4. Transcendence and Communication 5. Inequality as Driver 6. Embedding Patriarchy: feminism and inequality in the Internet era Section 3: Technofutures and Power 7. Complex Hegemony in the 21st Century: power and inequality Conclusion

The Internet and digital technologies have changed the world we live in and the ways we engage with one another and work and play. This is the starting point for this collection which takes analysis of the digital world to the next level exploring the frontiers of digital and creative transformations and mapping their future directions. It brings together a distinctive collection of leading academics, social innovators, activists, policy specialists and digital and creative practitioners to discuss and address the challenges and opportunities in the contemporary digital and creative economy.

Contributions explain the workings of the digital world through three main themes: connectivity, creativity and rights. They combine theoretical and conceptual discussions with real world examples of new technologies and technological and creative processes and their impacts. Discussions range across political, economic and cultural areas and assess national contexts including the UK and China. Areas covered include digital identity and empowerment, the Internet and the ‘Fifth Estate’, social media and the Arab Spring, digital storytelling, transmedia and audience, economic and social innovation, digital inclusion, community and online curation, cyberqueer activism. The volume developed out of a UK Economic and Social Research Council funded research seminar series.

The Internet and digital technologies have changed the world we live in and the ways we engage with one another and work and play. This is the starting point for this collection which takes analysis of the digital world to the next level exploring the frontiers of digital and creative transformations and mapping their future directions. It brings together a distinctive collection of leading academics, social innovators, activists, policy specialists and digital and creative practitioners to discuss and address the challenges and opportunities in the contemporary digital and creative economy.

Contributions explain the workings of the digital world through three main themes: connectivity, creativity and rights. They combine theoretical and conceptual discussions with real world examples of new technologies and technological and creative processes and their impacts. Discussions range across political, economic and cultural areas and assess national contexts including the UK and China. Areas covered include digital identity and empowerment, the Internet and the ‘Fifth Estate’, social media and the Arab Spring, digital storytelling, transmedia and audience, economic and social innovation, digital inclusion, community and online curation, cyberqueer activism. The volume developed out of a UK Economic and Social Research Council funded research seminar series.