June 2020
[Cancelled] Soirees
The first GDC soiree will not go ahead, due to official directions regarding the Covid-19 pandemic. We are very sorry to have to cancel such an exciting event, but we need to prioritize health and safety We are thinking of alternatives to move our events online. To stay informed about the next steps of Global Digital Cultures you can subscribe to our newsletter here. The soirees gather UvA researchers and visiting scholars to discuss key publications that trigger debate and inspire…
Find out more »September 2020
Programmed Racism
GDC Webinar Series How do digital technologies mediate racism? It is increasingly clear that digital technologies, including auto-complete function, facial recognition, and profiling tools are not neutral but racialized in specific ways. This webinar focuses on the different modes of programmed racism. We present historical and contemporary examples of racial bias in computational systems and learn about the potential of Civic AI. We discuss the need for a global perspective and postcolonial approaches to computation and discrimination. What research agenda…
Find out more »Digital Sex work in the Age of Covid
GDC Webinar Series Digitization is transforming the global sex industry. With their low barrier of entry, live and highly interactive character, webcam sex platforms such as Chaturbate or LiveJasmin have become one of the sex industry’s most profitable and fastest-growing segments. This development has been further propelled by Corona, which forced many sex workers to look for alternative sources of income online. But what does their work entail? Which new risks and opportunities do they encounter, compared to offline sex…
Find out more »Digital Public Infrastructures
GDC Webinar Series Public institutions, from universities and museums to public service media and local governments, are rapidly becoming digitized. In this process, they increasingly depend on digital platforms, operated by major corporations, most prominently Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft. Consequently, public institutions have limited control over how key services are developed and how data is collected and processed through these services. The Covid-19 crisis, which further accelerates digitization, has made this particular urgent. This webinar discusses whether there…
Find out more »October 2020
Kick-off: Global Digital Cultures
All Welcome! On Friday, October 2, 2020, the University of Amsterdam will launch its new research priority area ‘Global Digital Cultures’ (GDC). Researchers and students from all faculties at the UvA, as well as non-UvA audiences with an interest in these topics, are warmly invited to this online event. There will be a keynote dialogue with Louise Amoore (Durham University), a panel discussion on GDC's main research themes, as well as information on new seed funding for interdisciplinary research and events. You can download the full…
Find out more »February 2021
Online Seminar: Engaging with Online Sex Work
Many concepts ‘meet’ each other in the practices of online sex work; physical & digital, pleasure & power, intimacy & publicness, body & labour. Not to forget how gender, race, class, ethnicity, and sexuality intersect in this type of work. How can we engage in meaningful ways with these complexities and entangled realities? Artist and communication scholar Antonia Hernandez and writer, researcher, activist, and porn performer Lorelei Lee will discuss how art, writing, and play might provide methods for engagement…
Find out more »Online Seminar: Global Digital Inequalities
How does digitisation reshape the distribution of cultural, economic, and political resources around the globe? Over the past decades, this has been a central question in activist, scholarly, and policy debate. In this webinar, feminist technologist Nishant Shah and creative practitioner Padmini Ray Murray will discuss the current state of this debate. How is digital inequality framed in different parts of the world and what are the consequences of this framing? What can be the pitfalls of certain rhetorics of…
Find out more »Children and Data Justice
With the increased use of digital technologies by children, new opportunities for empowerment and connection have emerged but, alongside this, the possibility of increased exploitation of this vulnerable group. In this webinar, scholars Dr. Sara Grimes and Dr. Veronica Barassi will discuss the current challenges facing children’s rights in the digital realm. What potential interventions can be designed to create data justice and freedom for children in the digital space? In what ways has the increased use of technologies during…
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