Category: Publications

New paper: "Evolving Spatialities of Digital Life"

3/20/2024

I'm excited to announce the Dr. Casey Lynch and I have a new paper, "Evolving spatialities of digital life: Troubling the smart city/home divide" out in Digital Geography and Society. This project came together after Casey and I met as a contributing authors for an edited volume, Artificial Intelligence and the City (ed. Cugurullo, Caprotti, Cook, Karvonen, McGuirk, and Marvin), in 2022 and recognized potential for collaboration. It's been a pleasure to work with Casey, and we are very proud of the shape these ideas have taken.

Cite:
Lynch, C. R., & Sweeney, M. E. (2024). Evolving spatialities of digital life: Troubling the smart city/home divide. Digital Geography and Society, 6, 100085. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.diggeo.2024.100085

Abstract
While feminist geographers have long aimed to trouble conceptions of the city/home (and, by extension, public/private) divides, the digital city and the digital home are still often theorized separate phenomena within much digital geography literature. Drawing on previous work on feminist home-city geographies, this paper proposes four analytical frames for reflecting on the relationship between urban and domestic space in digital geographies: governance, domestication, thresholds, and dwelling. The paper explores each lens through a critical review of recent literature in digital geographies and related fields. It weaves this review through a speculative reading of the Eco Delta Smart City, an experimental development building the smart city from the home up in Busan, South Korea. We show how each lens calls attention to distinct sets of questions, actors, agendas, and relations–thus refusing any single reading of the project or of the broader trends around digitalization of which it is a part. In the process, we trace how digitalization does not simply trouble existing spatial categories, but rather makes them manifest in new ways for differently situated subjects.

New article out in American Quarterly

4/4/2022

I'm excited to announce that Melissa Villa-Nicholas and I have a new article published in American Quarterly: "Digitizing the 'ideal' Latina Information Worker." This research represents the evolution of our thinking through issues related to interface design and labor histories throughout several collaborative works. I want to thank my co-author for being the most generous and brilliant collaborator, and the editors and reviewers who helped us improve the paper throughout the publication process. Please consider reading, assigning, and citing this research!

Latina AVA installed at Long Beach airport, pictured in Airus Media’s brochure.

Abstract:
Recent examples of virtual assistant technologies designed as Latina information service workers are noteworthy objects of study for their potential to bridge analyses of Latinas’ labor history and information technology. Latinas in the United States have traditionally worked in blue-collar information technology sectors characterized by repetitive labor and low wages, such as electronics manufacturing and customer service. Latina information service workers, though fundamental to technoscience, have been largely invisible in histories of computing. Latina virtual assistants mark a shift in this labor history by relying on the strategic visibility of Latina identity in/as the technology interface. Our research explores Latina virtual assistants designed by Airus Media and installed as airport workers in airports along the southwestern border of the United States. We situate the technocultural narratives present in the design and marketing of these technologies within the broader histories of invisible Latina information labor in the United States. We find continuities between the ways Latinas have historically been positioned as “ideal” information workers and the use of Latina identity in the design of virtual assistants. We argue that the strategic visibility of Latina virtual assistants is linked to the oppressive structures of invisibility that have traditionally organized Latina information service workers.

Cite as: Sweeney, M. E., & Villa-Nicholas, M. (2022). Digitizing the “Ideal” Latina Information Worker. American Quarterly, 74(1), 145–167. https://doi.org/10.1353/aq.2022.0007. (Pre-print available at http://ir.ua.edu/handle/123456789/7549.)

Uncertain Archives (MIT Press) is available!

2/9/2021

I was so thrilled to receive a copy of Uncertain Archives: Critical Keywords for Big Data in the mail a few weeks ago. This compilation edited by Nanna Thylstrup, Daniela Agostinho, Annie Ring, Catherine D'Ignazio, and Kristin Veel features critical entries on big data from a wide range of prominent and upcoming media scholars, arranged glossary style. (And, what a beautiful cover!)

The volume contains my own entry, "Digital Assistants", and critically explores the "commonsense" design practices of smart digital assistants and related technologies.

A pre-print of my chapter is available if you can't get your hands on this excellent book. Otherwise, I recommend taking the time to read through these provocative essays that provide a snapshot of the big data environment and suggestions for our data futures.

Thank you to the editors and authors whose time, labor, and generosity crafted this wonderful resource!

New article out on emoji skin-tone modifers

7/3/2019

I'm so excited to announce that I have a new article out with co-author (and UA SLIS alum) Kelsea Whaley, that discusses emoji skin-tone modifers and whiteness. This project was a long time in the making, so it's a delight to finally see it out in final form! Check out the article, "Technically white: Emoji skin-tone modifers as American technoculture," in the July 2019 issue of First Monday!

Abstract:
The inclusion of skin-tone modifiers into the standard emoji set marked a shift from the default white racialization of emoji towards explicit attempts to expand racial representation in the human emoji characters. This study explores the racial logics of emoji as culturally-situated artifacts that rely on linked understandings of race and technology. We conduct an interface analysis of emoji skin-tone modifiers, coupled with user discourse analysis, to explore the design and user interpretations of skin-tone modifiers. Our findings suggest that though the skin-tone modifiers were introduced as an intervention into the lack of racial representation in emoji, they continue to technically center whiteness in the emoji set as an extension of American technoculture.

Cite as: Sweeney, M.E. & Whaley, K. (2019). Technically white: Emoji skin-tone modifiers as American technoculture. First Monday, 24(7), 0-0, http://dx.doi.org/10.5210/fm.v24i7.10060.

New article out: "Are We Still Transmitting Whiteness?"

10/28/2018

I'm pleased to announce that my newest article with co-author Meredith Wickham, "Are We Still Transmitting Whiteness? A Case Study of a Southern, Rural Library’s Youth Collections," is now available in the Summer 2018 issue of Library Trends. The theme of this issue, Race and Ethnicity in Library and Information Science: An Update, revisits and updates important conversations about race and ethnicity in the field of library and information science. I'm extremely proud of our paper, and pleased to be in conversation with the excellent thinkers who appear alongside us in this issue. Check out the abstract below!

This study updates and extends Hand’s (2012) research on the transmission of Whiteness through public library youth collections in the early 1900s. Taking Hand’s study as a departure point, this case study of a southern, rural, public library asks whether and how Whiteness is still transmitted through the library’s youth collections. Analysis of Rural Branch Library’s (RBL) easy reader and juvenile biography collections confirms an overrepresentation of White authors and characters and storylines that privilege White racial frameworks. Analysis of RBL’s collection development policies and practices reveals that color-blind selection policies, lack of weeding, and constraints in resources and staffing create a structure that fosters the transmission of Whiteness in the youth collections over time. This study contributes to understandings of library collections as sites of social power and has implications for the collection development policies and practices of similarly situated small and rural public libraries.

Cite as:
Wickham, M. E. & Sweeney, M. E. (2018). Are We Still Transmitting Whiteness? A Case Study of a Southern, Rural Library’s Youth Collections. Library Trends 67(1), 89-106. Johns Hopkins University Press.

New article out: "You're So Sensitive!"

10/3/2018

Cover image for the journal The Library Quarterly.

I'm pleased to announce that my latest publication with co-author Nicole Cooke, “You’re So Sensitive! How LIS Professionals Define and Discuss Microaggressions Online,” is now available in the October 2018 issue of The Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy. Check out the abstract below!

This study analyzes a lengthy online discussion thread about racial microaggressions in a social media group for librarians to find out how library and information science (LIS) professionals define and discuss microaggressions through informal conversation. The findings reveal that there are multiple and conflicting understandings of microaggressions, along with significant gaps in knowledge regarding how microaggressions relate to larger systems of power and privilege. This research has implications for LIS educators and for the professional development of LIS practitioners, underscoring the further need to actively teach about microaggressions in the context of power and privilege in the LIS classroom and in continuing education settings.

Cite as:
Sweeney, M.E & Cooke, N.A. (2018). You’re So Sensitive! How LIS Professionals Define and Discuss Microaggressions Online. The Library Quarterly Information, Community, Policy, 88(4), 375-390.

Teaching for Justice, available now!

2/1/2017

"Teaching for Justice: Implementing Social Justice in the LIS Classroom," co-edited by Nicole A. Cooke and myself, is available for purchase now! We are so excited to see this book come to press and appreciate the time and effort of all of the authors who made it possible.