intersectionality

Gender, Sexuality, and Embodiment in Digital Spheres: Connecting Intersectionality and Digitality

Abstract

Gender, sexuality and embodiment in digital spheres have been increasingly studied from various critical perspectives: From research highlighting the articulation of intimacies, desires, and sexualities in and through digital spaces to theoretical explorations of materiality in the digital realm. With such a high level of (inter)disciplinarity, theories, methods, and analyses of gender, sexuality, and embodiment in relation to digital spheres have become highly diversified. Aiming to reflect this diversity, this special issue brings together innovative and newly developed theoretical, empirical, analytical, and critical approaches in the study of gender, sexuality, and embodiment in digital spheres. By connecting intersectionality and digitality to one another, it adopts an integrated approach that reflects the intricacy and interconnectedness of social categories and markers of difference, privilege, performance, and discrimination. The contributions explore a range of differently situated digital cultural practices, including intimate and sexual experiences with(in) digital media, online self-presentation, expressions of digital resistance, and forms of backlash and online attacks. What connects all these articles, is their critical approach to intersectional inequalities and privileges in relation to digitality, plus their nuanced perspective on gender, sexuality, and embodiment interferentially. The final article is based on a roundtable discussion and aims to encourage interdisciplinary connections and suggests ways of doing research that builds bridges between academia and activism.

A Virtual Safe Space? An Approach of Intersectionality and Social Identity to Behavior in Virtual Environments

Abstract

Health measures in response to the Covid-19 pandemic have confined millions to their homes and minimized social contacts. During this period, a significant proportion of social activities—including work, education, and recreation—moved to digital media platforms. Among these platforms, social virtual reality (VR) has gained importance offering “alternative” realities in which users can engage with others, participate in cultural and sports events, complete education-related activities, and (mental) health treatments, to name but a few functions. With the increasing popularity of social VR and the expanding range of activities these platforms can host, hitherto-unexplored questions arise regarding social interactions and the representation of virtual bodies. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to outline a potential framework for assessing how avatars that represent various body types and demographic characteristics, such as gender or ethnicity, may impact behaviors and identity. The paper presents a theoretical study that combines social identity theory and theories of intersectionality and applies them to the case of digitally created human-like bodies. By doing this, it illuminates the challenges and benefits virtual reality platforms and digital body representations hold—including remote social interactions due to social isolation and social dynamics based on online personas.

Pushing Intersectionality, Hybridity, and (Inter)Disciplinary Research on Digitality to Its Limits: A Conversation Among Scholars of Gender, Sexuality, and Embodiment

Abstract

During the past two decades or so, the emergence and ever-accelerating development of digital media have sparked scholarly interest, debates, and complex challenges across many disciplines in the social sciences and the humanities. Within this diverse scholarship, the research on digitality, gender, sexuality, and embodiment has contributed substantially to many academic fields, such as media studies, sociology, religion, philosophy, and education studies. As a part of the special issue “Gender, Sexuality, and Embodiment in Digital Spheres: Connecting Intersectionality and Digitality,” this roundtable consists of a conversation between five researchers from different (inter)disciplinary locations, all addressing matters of methodology, intersectionality, positionality, and theory in relation to the topics of gender, sexuality, and embodiment in digital spheres. Said roundtable begins with a critical self-positioning of the participants’ (inter)disciplinary and embodied locations using examples from their own research. The conversation then progresses to how these researchers have employed contemporary theories, conceptual vocabularies, methods, and analyses of gender, sexuality, and embodiment in digital spheres to then conclude with some ethico-political notes about collaborations between scholars and (digital) activists.