Category Archives: Social change

Media power revolution at Goldsmiths in April

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Last month, I attended the Media, Power & Revolution: Making the 21st Century which took place on 2, 3, 4 April 2012 at the Senate House in London.The event was organised by the Goldsmiths Leverhulme Media Research Centre (Programme).

In the opening address on Day 1, James Curran gave some interesting statistics about the role of the internet in politics. For instance, he noted how people still largely rely on television for news information – 79% of UK readers have never read a blog and only 24% of Egyptian population actually have internet connection. Continue reading →

CFP for the 6th Annual BSSN Conference – Global Crisis: local identities and sexuality

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EXTENDED DEADLINE – 2 June 2012

The theme for the 6th annual BSSN conference is ‘Global Crisis: local identities and sexuality’. This one-day conference will take place on 13 September 2012 at the University of Sussex. We invite abstracts for papers, panels, workshops, posters, exhibits, performances and other possible formats. Please submit a 300-word abstract together with your contact details and affiliation by 25 May 2 June 2012 to; bssn@brighton.ac.uk

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My paper at the Articulating alternatives: agents, spaces and communication in/of a time of crisis

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On May 3rd, 2012, I will be giving the paper Digital networks and women: emerging political subjectivities in a time of crisis, at the new scholar workshop Articulating alternatives: agents, spaces and communication in/of a time of crisis, in Centre for the Study of Global Media and Democracy, Goldsmiths, University of London. This workshop is organised by research felllows Eleftheria Lekakis and Hilde Stephansen. I’m really looking forward to this, especially since the format of the workshop promises to be innovative as well.

I will be arguing in favour of a global governmentality (biopolitical) approach to the crisis – and indicate how my empirical research draws me towards such an analytical approach and away from global civil society frameworks (for instance Connoly 2001, Keane 2003) .


viva prep: since you submitted your thesis, what happened with…

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– the Gay men blood ban: well, the lifetime ban by the National Blood service got lifted in September 2011. Now men who have engaged in sexual activity with other men in the past get a one-year-deferral, which is also the case in Italy and Spain. I’ve written about the ‘Donation not discrimination’ campaign of the National Union of Students LGBT section (also supported by Stonewall, UNISON and others) in my Chapter on space, digital networking and political identity.

– the HFEA consultation on egg donation & compensation. According to the October 2011 press release, the HFEA decided to pay women £750 per cycle of donation, which according to Lisa Jardine reflects the ‘value of donation’ – not sure what this means. But I think I understand what ‘capitalise’ means in this sentence: ‘That’s why we have decided to capitalise on our unique position by actively helping the sector to attract and retain donors, use their donations to their full and ensure that donors are well cared for and valued.’ One of my thesis chapters examines some feminist biopolitical assemblages around the 2011 HFEA consultation and reproductive rights more generally in relation to debates about the global flows of information and bodily material.