The landscape of information is rapidly shifting as new imperatives and demands push to the fore increasing investment in digital technologies. Yet, critical information scholars continue to demonstrate how digital technology and its narratives are shaped by and infused with values that are not impartial, disembodied, or lacking positionality. Technologies consist of a set of social practices, situated within the dynamics of race, gender, class, and politics, and in the service of something – a position, a profit motive, a means to an end.
In this talk Safiya Umoja Noble, Assistant Professor in the Department of Information Studies at UCLA, will discuss the importance of the academic-activist scholarly community to offer models of intervention and resistance through research, practice, and teaching. Her research uses black feminism and critical race theory to examine the linkages to power struggles on the web, and the consequences of racist and sexist marginalization in commercial information platforms like Google search and other infrastructures of the Internet.
This event is co-sponsored by the Yale Library’s Standing Committee on Professional Awareness (SCOPA) and Women in IT at Yale (WIT).
Click here to register. A reception from 4:30-5pm will immediately follow the talk.