Biography

I completed my Ph.D in Media and Cultural Studies at the University of Sussex in January 2012. I am primarily interested in exploring the ways in which media and cultural studies cross with feminist science and technology studies and queer theory. My earliest work explored blogs of disabled women, as well as methodological issues in queer studies and intersectionality. What I found particularly interesting was how to give an account that is both dynamic and political, of the new forms of feminist and queer politics emerging in networked media environments in contemporary UK. Thus in my doctoral research 'Remediating politics: feminist and queer formations in digital networks', I developed a methodological and theoretical framework that addresses political aspects of digital media technologies and technological dimensions of women's politics. My work seeks to contribute to discussions around mediation and representation through an analysis of substantial ethnographic data, from both online and offline settings, and at their intersections.

During my Doctoral study, I have taken part in the summer schools

• 'Feminist Technoscience: Articulating the Human and the Nonhuman', Centre for Gender and Women's Studies & Centre for Science Studies, Lancaster University in 2011
• 'Ethnoscapes, cultural diversity and media in an enlarged Europe' ECREA European Media and Communication, in Estonia in 2009.

I am a member of the Digital Culture & Communication ECREA section, the Brighton and Sussex Sexualities Network (BSSN), MeCCSA and the Feminist and Women's studies association (FWSA). I have organised academic events, such as

• the graduate conference Digital Methods, Cultural Politics and Feminist Approaches, at the Research Centre for Material Digital Culture (supported by Roberts Fund) and
• the 2009/2011 interdisciplinary Ngender Graduate Seminars.

My experience in peer-review includes

• Feminist Review Journal
• Studies in Social and Political Thought (SSPT) Journal, University of  Sussex
• 8th Conference of the International Association for the Study of Sexuality, Culture and Society (IASSCS), Naming and framing: The making of Sexual (In)Equality (June 2011, Madrid)
• ECREA Digital Culture & Communication 3rd workshop, Digital Culture: Innovative practices and critical theories (November 2011, Barcelona).

Role

• Research Support for the School of Media, Film and Music - Working hours: Mondays 9.30-5.15, Tuesdays 9.30-4.00, Thursdays 12.30-4.30.

• Associate Tutor in the School of Media Film and Music (International Student Support, Master's level).

Qualifications

PhD (awarded 31st January 2012, subject to minor corrections), Postgrad Cert, MA, BA (Hons), BSc (Open).

Research

Thesis

REMEDIATING POLITICS: FEMINIST AND QUEER FORMATIONS IN DIGITAL NETWORKS

My research examines reconfigurations of feminist and queer politics in digital networks. It does so by placing digital mediation at the heart of politicisation processes in contemporary highly technological and networked environments. The project maps practices and forms of politics which emerge in networked media environments in contemporary UK, both in online and offline settings, and at their intersections. My concern is also with the ways in which digital methods of research and visualisation change our ways of studying and imagining social change.

For the empirical analysis I employed various methods, like participant observation, hyperlink mapping and visualisation, textual analysis and interviews, and examined situated practices across different spaces and scales:

• issue-identity networks gathering around a feminist conference in London, and the changes in organising that result from the implementation of networked media;
• local activist groups based in Brighton and the relationship between space, networked technologies and political identity;
• postporn politics emerging both in online settings and offline events, in relation to ideas of exposure, affective labour and gift economies in network culture;
• and biopolitical assemblages active in debates of reproductive rights, examined in relation to global flows of information and bodily material.

The research suggests that emerging forms of political organising comprise different kinds of networked publics that occupy various positions in a dynamic political topology. The thesis seeks to contribute to an understanding of how changing conditions in digitally mediated environments constitute foreclosures or possibilities for feminist and queer politics today. 

Teaching

Seminar Instructor - School of Media, Film and Music, University of Sussex.

• Introduction to Media Studies 1 & 2, Academic Year 2009/2010
• Research Methods in Media and Film, Academic Year 2009/2010
• Questioning the Media, Academic Year 2010/2011
• Analysing Digital Media, Academic Year 2010/2011
• News, Politics and Power, Academic Year 2011/2012

Visiting Lecturer, University of Brighton

• Analysing Discourse (Critical Discourse Analysis prt of the module), Department of English and Media. Seminar Instructor, November 2010 - February 2011.
• Broadcast Media - a critical introduction, University of Brighton in Hastings, Lecture on "Genre", March, 3 2011. Seminar instructor February 2012 - June 2012.
• Critical Introduction to Media Studies, Lecturer & seminar instructor. October 2011- December 2011.

Module leader

• Global political communication, February 2012 - June 2012 (BA Broadcast Journalism, University of Brighton).

Student Consultation

 

 SB 307 Thursdays 4.30-5.15

Activities

Upcoming conferences:

 

• 9th International Conference Crossroads in Cultural Studies, Paris, France, from July 2^nd to 6^th, 2012, hosted by Sorbonne Nouvelle University  with the support of the French National Commission for UNESCO.

Selection of past conference papers:

• Materialising practices: The embodiment of politics in digital networks at the MeCCSA 2012 Conference, University of Bedfordshire. January 2012.

• Web crawling, network narratives and performing political identities at the ‘Internet Research 12.0 – Performance and Participation’, Association of Internet Researchers (Aoir), Seattle 2011. Panel: Political subjects and political fields: Or how technology happens twice, with Caroline Bassett and Kate O’Riordan.

• The truth in Computing?: Issue Crawler and Cultural Research – A Workshop by Digital Humanities, Digital Methods, Research Centre for Digital Material Culture (2011 University of Sussex).

• Feminist networks, issues and identities: The case of Feminism in London 2009 at the 3rd European Communication Conference, ECREA (2010 University of Hamburg).
  

Research Weblog

Digital Networks, Queer and Feminist Politics

Selected publications

2012

Intersectionality, queer studies and hybridity: Methodological frameworks for social research in Journal of International Women's Studies, In Preparation - Planned

Remediating queer politics in online porn: Brand(ed) new sexualities and real bodies in Journal of Lesbian Studies, In Preparation - Planned

2009

Translocal Connectivity and Political Identity: Brighton Queer Cultural Activism Nico Carpentier, Pille Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt, Richard Kilborn, Tobias Olsson, Hannu Nieminen, Ebba Sundin and Kaarle Nordenstreng, ed., in Communicative approaches to politics and ethics in Europe. The intellectual work of the 2009 ECREA European Media and Communication Doctoral Summer School' ISBN 978-9949-19-250-2