Cyber Selves
Feminist Ethnographies of South Asian Women
By (author) Radhika Gajjala Contributions by Annapurna Mamidipudi

Publication date:
23 November 2004Length of book:
170 pagesPublisher
AltaMira PressDimensions:
235x168mm7x9"
ISBN-13: 9780759106918
In her new book Gajjala examines online community formations and subjectivities that are produced at the intersection of technologies and globalization. She describes the process of designing and building cyberfeminist webs for South Asian women's communities, the generation of feminist cyber(auto)ethnographies, and offers a third-world critique of cyberfeminism. She ultimately views virtual communities as imbedded in real life communities and contexts, with human costs. The online discussions are visible, textual records of the discourses that circulate within real life communities. Her methodology involves a form of 'cyberethnography,' which explores the dialogic and disruptive possibilities of the virtual medium and of hypertext. Gajjala's work addresses the political, economic, and cultural ramifications of the Internet communication explosion. This book will be a valuable reference for those with an interest in cultural studies, feminist studies, and new technologies.
Radhika Gajjala's Cyberselves asks all the essential questions about technology, diaspora, nationality, and gender in the age of the Internet. Her lyrical interventions into the form of the academic book disrupt expectations about what ethnography ought to look like, and her unusual perspective as a member and leader of early online community gives the book a welcome grounding in lived experience. Her earnest, passionate, and deeply felt intervention into cyberculture studies is grounded in an excellent knowledge of the most relevant theoretical debates regarding postcolonialism, gender, and technology. This book also includes an exciting dialogue with a South Asian women's labor activist, and is committed throughout to collaborative thinking and knowledge-creation. This is a very personal and intimate book, and a welcome addition to the existing body of literature on online ethnography.