Conference Announcement
AfroGeeks: From Technophobia to Technophilia
May 7-8, 2004
Center for Black Studies
University of California, Santa Barbara
Free and Open to the Public
In recent years, African Americans, especially,
have been portrayed as poster children for the digital
divide discourse. Though rarely represented today as full
participants in the information technology revolution, black
people are among the earliest adopters and comprise some of
the most ardent and innovative users of IT (information
technology). It is too often widespread ignorance of African
Diasporic people's long history of technology adoption that
limits fair and fiscally sound IT investments, policies and
opportunities for black communities locally and globally.
Such racially aligned politics of investment create a
self-fulfilling prophesy or circular logic wherein the
lack of equitable access to technology in black communities
produces a corresponding lack of technology literacy and
competencies.
Thus, necessary high-tech investments are not made in such
underserved communities because many consider it fiscally
irresponsible, which, in turn, perpetuates the vicious
cycle. Despite such formidable odds, black people continue
to break out of this cycle of socially constructed
technological determinism. It is in this way that African
Diasporic people's many successes within new media and
information technologies are too often overshadowed by
the significant inequalities in technology access.
This conference takes up these and other important issues
pertaining to black people's actual engagements with IT
outside the popular stereotype of black technological lag
behind other population sectors. Among the topics addressed
at this "AfroGEEKS" conference are: concerns with structural
barriers to IT access; effective models of innovative IT use
and adoption; the influence of traditional science education
on black youths' tech skills; black technophobes and
Luddites; computer gaming; black IT leaders; IT commodity
consumption versus production; black blogs and virtual
communities; high-tech racial surveillance and profiling
after 9-11; digital arts; the geek identity problematic,
and more...
MORE INFORMATION AND REGISTRATION:
http://www.afrogeeks.com
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