PLATFORM FEMINISM & The Politics of Elevation with Dr. Rianka Singh
*transcript cleaned by Kaitlyn Gastineau


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Hello, everybody.


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Hope everyone is doing well today.


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Welcome to the second lab presentation


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this year and the last one for this year.


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I hope
everyone is having a good time into 2022.


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Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving
holiday and is sort of having fun,


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maybe wrapping up
the things that they are doing this year.


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My name is Aaron Dial.


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I'm a postdoc
for the postdoctoral research fellow


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for the Humanities and Techno Science Lab
at Purdue University, which is affiliated


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with the DISCO Network.


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I am honored,
honored, honored to have my good friend


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Rianka Singh talk to us today.


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Her talk title
for today is called Platform Feminism


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and the Politics of Elevation,


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and she is an assistant professor
in the Communication and Media


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Studies department
at York University in Toronto, Canada.


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She is co editor with Sarah Sharma


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of Re-Understanding Media: Feminist
Extensions of Marshall McLuhan.


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I can tell you from experiment experience,
that's a great book.


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You should buy it and read it.


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Her work on the relationship
between platforms of platforms of feminist


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politics has been published
in the Canadian Journal of Communication.


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Feminist Media Studies.


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First Monday and ADA.


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And also she is the biggest Toronto
Raptors fan that I know.


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So yeah.


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So without further ado,
I will introduce our Rianka Singh.


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So Rianka the floor is yours. Awesome.


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Thank you.


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I'm just going to share some slides


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before I get going.


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So is that good do have you have me up.


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Yes. Yes.


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Okay, great. Okay, cool.


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It's taken away everyone's faces,
so I don't know


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if you want to frown at me.


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You can. I won't. I won't know.


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Okay, So just before I begin,
I want to acknowledge


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that I am presenting to you from an area
that's been the site of cosmopolitan


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and international human activity
for over 15,000 years.


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And we want to honor the relationships
forged and ongoing here.


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This is a traditional territory
of many nations, including the Anishinaabe


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Mississauga's of the Credit and the Ojibwe


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peoples, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy,
and Wendat peoples and


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is now home to many first nations,
Inuit and Métis peoples,


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the territory is the subject of the Dish
with One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant.


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The agreement between the Anishinaabe
and Haudenosaunee peoples to peaceably


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share and care for the area around
the Great Lakes region


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and all the way up to the Saint Lawrence
River.


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This agreement has been violated
through several iterations


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of the Toronto Purchase,
starting around 1787 again


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in 1805 and continuing into the 2010
settlement.


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And we live with and in this violation.


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So for those of us who are here as guests
or uninvited visitors,


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we want to imagine and practice ways
of being good guests,


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of orienting our work and priorities
in the direction of and in support


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of those who have cared for this area
and these lifeways for thousands of years.


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So thanks to Aaron in the Humanities
and Techno


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Science Lab and the DISCO Network
for asking me to speak today.


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And it seems like there's lots of people
making all of this happen,


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at least five of you.


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So thanks to all of you as well.


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I'm excited to be joining you at Purdue
virtually


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so today.


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I'm going to begin by giving you
a sort of overview on my research


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on the relationship
between platforms as media


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objects to feminist and race politics.


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I'll move on to presenting a chapter
from my my book in progress,


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which introduces terms of resistance
in a minor key, inclination, and rectitude


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as they relate to digital culture
and specifically to to platform media.


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And then I'm going to end
by sort of trying to account


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for the contemporary moment and asking


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how it might help us rethink
platform power today.


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Where to locate platform power,
what it is,


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why it's maybe a little bit different
from the way that other folks


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doing platform studies
maybe understand power too.


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So my


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overall research outlines
this sort of media theory, which I call


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platform feminism, for thinking
about the feminist politics of platforms.


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It's one that's combining feminist media
studies, critical race theory,


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materialist approaches
to communication technologies


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and what we might call
digital platforms studies.


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Although increasingly
I've noticed that platform studies


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bros are pretending
they don't have a special subfield.


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But that's a problem for another day
maybe.


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So I argue that at that
the platform is an overdetermined feminist


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object of empowerment
within popular feminist imaginaries,


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but it's also somehow an under theorized


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media technology within platform studies.


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So this term platform feminism accounts
for an elevated platform


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that has become synonymous
with feminist action and empowerment.


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The idea of a raised platform for women


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and I want to pause here and acknowledge


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that this is an often universalizing
notion of women


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has come to dominate popular imaginaries
of what a feminist politics looks like.


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But also what constitutes
feminist digital activism.


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Today.


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So I'm 


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just gonna back
up and start with a sort of definition.


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I consider platforms
to be any media object, which either


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physically or metaphorically raised,
elevate, and amplify people.


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So this, of course, includes
what we commonly consider to be platforms.


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So here I'm thinking about social media
platforms like Twitter and Facebook,


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but I'm also trying to think about


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other platforms like stages and pulpits
and soapboxes.


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Later in this talk,
we'll talk about high heeled shoes


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as platforms,
the slave auction block as a platform.


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My work challenges
some of the sort of main tenets of


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of this
growing subfield of platform studies


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because I argue that the focus
within platform studies has really tended


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to be on the affordances
and new sets of relationships


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that are taking on
and through various digital platforms,


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but that the platform isn't examined
as media and it's instead


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assumed to be a sort of broker of power
rather than as an extension of power.


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So I'm approaching the platform
as a medium that actually structures


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the political rather than as a surface
where the political is played out


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and and and maybe this will be familiar
to some of you.


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I know a couple of you here are from Toronto


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that this is an approach
that's really indebted to Marshall McLuhan


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and Harold Adams Innis' media theory


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because they provide us
with this more expansive notion of


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what technology is in particular
Innis famously


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developed the theory of time
and space bias media.


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And so following Innis
I consider to be space biased media.


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They facilitate the expansion
of decentralized power


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and adapt easily over time.


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We see this adaptability
by tracing earlier iterations of platforms


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and recognizing the ongoing effects
that they have in


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sustaining inequality
among those who mount them.


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So I'm turning to this media theory
in order to ask questions about platforms


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tech-nicity.


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What does it mean


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to have a media object, like a platform
that elevates and amplifies people?


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And how is this platform


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become a sort of condition of possibility
for popular feminist politics?


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The platform is this medium
that appears again and again and rather


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innocuously at sites of struggle,
and especially in the digital age.


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And this has been the case since
at least 2016, when the platform has been


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especially tied to expressions
of what Sarah Bennett Weiser


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calls popular feminism.


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For example, the Women's March,
with its pink knitted hats and witty


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signage, emerged in 2017 as a symbolic


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grand counter-narrative
to the Trump administration.


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Alongside the march #MeToo
and Time's Up,


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are these other expressions
of popular feminism


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that have really dominated
popular discourse and popular


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scholarship in feminist media studies
over the past few years.


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In 2017,
I attended the Women's March in Toronto.


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I was following MeToo discussions
in the news.


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I was tracking responses by feminist media
studies scholars to these


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popular movements closely as well,
and as many black and brown indigenous and queer.


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scholars and journalists
and activists have all since pointed out


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all of these events were overwhelmingly
straight and white,


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both in composition,
but also in how they were organized.


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And for me, it wasn't just the megaphones
or the Patagonia down-filled jackets


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or the expensive granola bars
and the pussy hats that were straightening


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and racing these popular movements.


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Nor was it
the fact that MeToo only gained popularity


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when white celebrities started tweeting
that they, too, had been subject


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to sexual abuse in Hollywood,
even though the hashtag was first used


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by a black civil rights activist
Tarana Burke more than a decade earlier.


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Right. We've heard this this story.


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We tell it to our students all the time.


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I'm sure.


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Instead, for me,
it was actually the role of the platform,


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an object that significantly mediated
all of these events and structured


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these popular movements in ways
that were being missed upon first glance.


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Significantly, each of these feminist
mobilizations has relied


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on social media platforms
such as Twitter and Facebook.


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Such social media platforms
really lend themselves


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to making feminism visible and accessible.


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Digital platforms
circulate news of upcoming marches,


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and they serve to reelevate the celebrities
and feminist heroes


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who stand on stages
and make speeches to rally a crowd.


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Feminism through the platform
is a digestible type of feminism.


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What these recent popular examples show us
is that the platform has really reduced


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feminist politics to simply showing up
and making your voice heard.


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So in doing research for this project,


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I found that what we might focus on
instead is how people and specifically


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black, brown,
indigenous, queer, and disabled folks


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resist differently
when being elevated by the platform


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either isn't made available
or isn't even the goal in the first place.


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And this is sort of the key
point to this project.


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So I'm just going to repeat the sentence.


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What we might focus on
instead as how people and specifically


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black, brown,
indigenous, queer and disabled folks


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resist differently when being made,
when being elevated by the platform


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either isn't made available
or isn't even the goal in the first place.


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They're still resisting in a technological
environment where platforms exist.


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And what I found
is that they seem to be organizing


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not with platforms,
but in despite of them.


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So in other words,
what my research has found


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is that for these groups, the political
utility of the platform is not assumed.


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And if there is any political utility
to the platform, it's


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not at all similar to what we see
in these popular forms of feminist action.


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Again, what I'm terming platform feminism


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scholars of feminist and class in black
geographies,


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Like Doreen Massey, and Catherine McKittrick
tells us that space has to meet.


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It has to be negotiated
differently for people marked


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by race, gender,
sexual orientation, class, and disability.


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So for me, this isn't about just having
a feminist intersectional analysis,


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but it's rather the very fact that those


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who live life as intersectional
are developing spatial strategies,


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everyday methods of negotiating space
and moving through the world


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as both a response
to dealing with institutional rules


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for particular spaces
and for their very survival.


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For some, the differential strategies
that emerge are focused on factors


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like safety, escape, concealment
and care over that of amplification


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in the popularizing
and resistance movements.


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So this might include everyday
things like traveling in groups,


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choosing to walk the streets
only at specific times of day, setting up


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protests set approximate to locations
that might signify safety.


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So for some, this is police
stations it could also be a hospital.


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These are all time consuming and well
thought out strategies for survival.


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And so we shouldn't
just read them as sort of minor details.


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For example, we might


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turn toward the indigenous practice of
circle dances, which have been performed


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as part of Idle No More and more recently
in the Wet'suwet'en movements.


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These are kind of Canadian based examples.


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There's no one body or person out of sync
in a circle dance.


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It's a communal mode of resistance.


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Amplification and visibility
aren't the aim.


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Or think about the thousands
of South American feminists who


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in 2019 began disguising their faces,
using bandanas and fabric


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to cover their eyes
during large scale dance movements


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that broke out at the end of
at the end of 2019


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in protest of ongoing issues of violence
against women.


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At these protests, participants
were performing a choreographed dance


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while chanting the words to a song,
which in English translates


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to a rapist in your path.


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You can find illustrated


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video guides that teach each step
of this choreographed dance online.


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And this was a way of ensuring
that nobody or no body was out of sync.


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This example highlights
how a logic of the platform,


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which we know has been to make information
visible, is often also used in order


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to kind of subvert visibility,
in order to ensure


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safety through opacity.


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So instead of thinking about resistance,
that's bound to the platform.


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This project is turning its attention


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to the corporeal
and focusing on tactics of resistance


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that are born out
of differential relationships to space.


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Notably,
to none of these examples place a singular


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figure or voice or Twitter
thread or personal story at the center.


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So here are a few more quick examples.


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In February


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2018, at the Blankets for Tina
Walk in Toronto, a group of people


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wrapped themselves in blankets
and marched in memory of Tina Fontaine.


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She was a Sagkeeng First Nations girl
whose killer was acquitted of her murder.


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The use of blankets was at once
a resistance tactic, but it was also


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a symbol of communal care and safety
and warmth.


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In 2016, members of Black Lives Matter,


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Toronto camped outside of the Toronto
police headquarters for two weeks


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in protest of the police
shooting of Andrew Loku.


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For those who camped out, the space became
one of community healing and building,


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according to Black Lives Matter
TO co-founder Alexandra Williams.


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These few examples are instances
of spatial strategies of resistance


00:15:10:05 - 00:15:14:18
that have less to do with amplification
or stepping up and onto the platform


00:15:14:24 - 00:15:17:23
and more to do with factors
related to the survival of bodies


00:15:17:23 - 00:15:19:20
that have experiences
that actually require


00:15:19:20 - 00:15:24:13
consideration of such factors.


00:15:24:15 - 00:15:25:05
So sort of


00:15:25:05 - 00:15:29:00
shifting gears here, but it will
hopefully make sense in the end.


00:15:29:02 - 00:15:33:06
One of the ways that I think is useful
for highlighting the uneven effects of


00:15:33:06 - 00:15:38:16
of platform visibility is to trouble
a neoliberal feminist investment


00:15:38:16 - 00:15:42:24
in visibility as a political
utility is to look at media objects


00:15:42:24 - 00:15:48:04
which have historically elevated and
amplified people to differential effects.


00:15:48:06 - 00:15:49:18
So, for example,


00:15:49:18 - 00:15:53:19
we might look at the slave auction
block as a platform in the American South.


00:15:53:19 - 00:15:57:05
Slave owners put enslaved
black people on blocks in order to better


00:15:57:05 - 00:16:01:00
display their physical features
at large slave auctions.


00:16:01:02 - 00:16:04:00
These blocks functioned as media
that made people more visible


00:16:04:00 - 00:16:08:22
in order to render them legible to power,
and mostly to make transactions easier.


00:16:08:24 - 00:16:13:04
So we see here how the platform
actually functions as media that extend


00:16:13:04 - 00:16:18:19
the gaze of power and the people
in the business of trading slaves.


00:16:18:21 - 00:16:19:08
We might


00:16:19:08 - 00:16:22:08
even look to to platform shoes
to show how elevation


00:16:22:08 - 00:16:27:07
is tied to the extension of power platform
or high heeled shoes.


00:16:27:07 - 00:16:31:08
More generally have this history
of mediating a popular feminist imperative


00:16:31:08 - 00:16:36:07
that sees visiblity and elevation
as vital to feminist liberation.


00:16:36:09 - 00:16:40:05
Shoe designers have really successfully
sold the idea that the platform shoe


00:16:40:05 - 00:16:43:15
is a quintessential expression
of femininity.


00:16:43:17 - 00:16:46:08
Since at least 220 B.C.


00:16:46:08 - 00:16:48:10
platform shoes
have acted as a way of heightening


00:16:48:10 - 00:16:51:03
and increasing the visibility
of those who wear them.


00:16:51:03 - 00:16:55:15
They've also been a marker of power.


00:16:55:17 - 00:16:57:23
Platform shoes have occupied and continue


00:16:57:23 - 00:17:01:24
to occupy this venerated place
in Western cultural imagination.


00:17:02:01 - 00:17:07:18
A woman in heels is a woman in power
and control of her body and sexuality.


00:17:07:20 - 00:17:10:20
The platform shoe shows us
how a particular


00:17:10:24 - 00:17:14:05
popular feminism
has this attachment to the platform.


00:17:14:07 - 00:17:18:00
It might better be considered
a technology of popular feminism,


00:17:18:02 - 00:17:21:06
something that can only ever be empowering
to those who are already


00:17:21:12 - 00:17:24:20
poised to be most visible.


00:17:24:22 - 00:17:26:04
And so while I think it's


00:17:26:04 - 00:17:28:21
hopefully totally obvious
that the degree of violence


00:17:28:21 - 00:17:32:23
between the auction block in the high
heeled shoes is different


00:17:33:00 - 00:17:37:08
I'm putting these objects in conversation
because my aim is to arrive at a power


00:17:37:08 - 00:17:38:14
analysis that shows us


00:17:38:14 - 00:17:43:04
the total effects of platforms
and the ways in which they mediate power.


00:17:43:06 - 00:17:47:16
The differential effects of visibility,
historically mediated by material


00:17:47:16 - 00:17:52:05
platforms, demands a conjunctural analysis
In an age of amplification,


00:17:52:05 - 00:17:56:06
where we're celebrating digital platforms
for reinvigorating feminism.


00:17:56:08 - 00:17:59:24
We must too look at the lessons
learned from the other ways media requires


00:17:59:24 - 00:18:08:07
particular kinds of visibility.


00:18:08:08 - 00:18:08:13
Okay,


00:18:08:13 - 00:18:12:06
so I have so far
set up this talk to show you that


00:18:12:08 - 00:18:17:14
as part of the amplified stage, digital
platforms facilitate increased visibility.


00:18:17:16 - 00:18:21:05
But I also want to show how quiet
resistance of those who don't take


00:18:21:05 - 00:18:25:05
so readily to the platforms
is also mediated by the digital.


00:18:25:07 - 00:18:28:21
I use a central argument
about platform, feminism and race


00:18:28:23 - 00:18:35:19
in a chapter in my in my book
called Resistance in a Minor Key


00:18:35:21 - 00:18:36:05
Saidiya


00:18:36:05 - 00:18:40:01
Hartman in The Anarchy of Colored Girls,
assembled in a riotous manner,


00:18:40:02 - 00:18:44:10
gives what she calls a speculative history
of Esther Brown, a young black girl


00:18:44:10 - 00:18:49:18
living in Harlem in the early 1900s.
After working a series of menial jobs.


00:18:49:20 - 00:18:52:17
Brown quit working
altogether and was charged and jailed


00:18:52:17 - 00:18:56:03
for vagrancy, for Brown, -er for Hartman.


00:18:56:05 - 00:18:59:17
Brown is but one example of black women
living in emerging American


00:18:59:17 - 00:19:04:12
ghettos whose very efforts to survive
must be read as radical resistance.


00:19:04:14 - 00:19:07:04
Of Brown's riotous life, Hartman writes,


00:19:07:04 - 00:19:12:03
But hers was a struggle without formal
declarations, a policy slogan or credos.


00:19:12:03 - 00:19:15:17
It required no party platform
or ten-point program.


00:19:15:19 - 00:19:19:10
Hartman calls this a revolution
in a minor key.


00:19:19:12 - 00:19:23:05
Hartman's theory of a revolution
in a minor key stands in direct contrast


00:19:23:05 - 00:19:26:16
with the relatively new waves
of popular feminist protests


00:19:26:18 - 00:19:29:01
that broke out in North America
and beyond.


00:19:29:01 - 00:19:31:13
Over the past decade,


00:19:31:15 - 00:19:31:20
while


00:19:31:20 - 00:19:34:21
popular feminist movements
have relied on amplification,


00:19:34:21 - 00:19:38:12
minor key resistance does not register
so clearly as protest.


00:19:38:14 - 00:19:41:07
It's often restrained
and might even be read as dissonant.


00:19:41:07 - 00:19:46:07
But it's also quiet and based on care.


00:19:46:09 - 00:19:50:06
In 2018, I began interviewing
different community organizers across


00:19:50:06 - 00:19:54:22
North America, looking for these quiet,
minor key modes of resistance.


00:19:54:24 - 00:19:57:15
Over the course of two years,
I spoke with a number of community


00:19:57:15 - 00:20:02:02
organizers, artists, technologists
based in different parts of the continent.


00:20:02:04 - 00:20:04:03
So next I'm going to focus on
one of the stories or


00:20:04:03 - 00:20:07:03
a couple of the stories,
I guess, from this research.


00:20:07:05 - 00:20:10:14
In this example,
I locate forms of resistance and protests


00:20:10:14 - 00:20:14:15
by groups whose choice not to amplify
shows that digitally mediated resistance


00:20:14:15 - 00:20:21:01
and feminist struggle go beyond recent
examples of popular feminism.


00:20:21:03 - 00:20:22:01
So in November


00:20:22:01 - 00:20:26:04
2018, I spoke on the phone with Cayden
Mak, a community organizer


00:20:26:04 - 00:20:31:02
based in Oakland, California,
who's a trans masculine person of color.


00:20:31:04 - 00:20:33:18
As a community organizer
and technologists,


00:20:33:18 - 00:20:36:21
Mak has co-founded grassroots
media startups and sees


00:20:36:21 - 00:20:41:03
the Internet as essential
for the survival of queer people of color.


00:20:41:05 - 00:20:44:07
For Mak, who grew up in suburban
Michigan, AOL message


00:20:44:07 - 00:20:47:21
boards made connecting
with people like them possible.


00:20:47:23 - 00:20:51:06
This was a practice that was life
sustaining in their mostly conservative


00:20:51:06 - 00:20:52:14
hometown.


00:20:52:14 - 00:20:55:12
Mak and I spent most of our time
talking about how their approach


00:20:55:12 - 00:20:59:10
to digital technologies, both personally
and professionally, are centered


00:20:59:10 - 00:21:04:03
around care
and survival of marginalized communities.


00:21:04:05 - 00:21:07:08
In our interview Mak made
obvious experiences of online


00:21:07:08 - 00:21:11:04
abuse against more joyful and life
affirming moments online


00:21:11:04 - 00:21:15:14
before telling me that platforms
are voluntary systems of care.


00:21:15:16 - 00:21:18:13
They recalled how relief efforts
following a fire at an artist


00:21:18:13 - 00:21:24:07
collective made an otherwise careless
platform, a potential site of care.


00:21:24:09 - 00:21:25:13
The Ghost Ship warehouse was


00:21:25:13 - 00:21:28:13
an industrial building
that served as a work-


00:21:28:13 - 00:21:32:02
live collective for artists in Oakland,
California.


00:21:32:04 - 00:21:34:05
On December 2nd, 2016.


00:21:34:05 - 00:21:37:13
The Ghost Ship warehouse was hosting an
electronic music party


00:21:37:13 - 00:21:39:17
when it caught fire. 36


00:21:39:17 - 00:21:43:21
people died in that fire and many others
lost their homes and artists studios.


00:21:44:00 - 00:21:44:22
Many of the artists


00:21:44:22 - 00:21:48:16
working and living out of that warehouse
were queer folks, people of color.


00:21:48:18 - 00:21:54:10
And after the fire, those who survived
were in need of lifesaving necessities.


00:21:54:12 - 00:21:58:03
In an effort to provide goods
to those who lost their property.


00:21:58:06 - 00:21:59:24
Ghost Ship


00:21:59:24 - 00:22:01:05
and the Ghost Ship Fire.


00:22:01:05 - 00:22:04:05
Wish lists were set up on Amazon


00:22:04:06 - 00:22:05:06
and Amazon Wish Lists,


00:22:05:06 - 00:22:06:24
for those of you that don't know


00:22:06:24 - 00:22:11:06
documents, what items a user is searched
for, needs, and it's shareable.


00:22:11:08 - 00:22:14:22
Others can access the wish
list and purchase listed items


00:22:14:24 - 00:22:18:16
which will then be delivered
directly to the user who requested them.


00:22:18:18 - 00:22:21:19
So these Amazon wishes are increasingly
being used by charities


00:22:21:19 - 00:22:24:23
that need fast access to specific goods
rather than money.


00:22:24:24 - 00:22:28:11
So we see this often with things
like hurricane relief.


00:22:28:13 - 00:22:31:05
So Amazon as a corporation
has been subject


00:22:31:05 - 00:22:34:06
to so much criticism
over the past few years.


00:22:34:06 - 00:22:38:01
So we can think about the devaluation
of people working in Amazon


00:22:38:01 - 00:22:41:11
warehouses globally.


00:22:41:13 - 00:22:43:14
Issues surrounding Amazon's customer data


00:22:43:14 - 00:22:47:08
collecting practices,
their proprietary digital assistant


00:22:47:08 - 00:22:52:04
Alexa's is a sort of latest
and most invasive surveillance technology


00:22:52:06 - 00:22:53:05
that its ultra fast


00:22:53:05 - 00:22:57:05
delivery service is contributing
to the destruction of the environment.


00:22:57:07 - 00:22:58:09
It's also been revealed


00:22:58:09 - 00:23:02:12
that Amazon has been complicit
in providing software to the U.S.


00:23:02:12 - 00:23:05:12
Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Agency ICE,


00:23:05:18 - 00:23:08:19
who have used facial recognition
and data mining tools to aid


00:23:08:19 - 00:23:12:16
in the separation of of migrant children
from their families.


00:23:12:18 - 00:23:18:00
So at almost every turn, Amazon is doing
something worth protesting against.


00:23:18:02 - 00:23:22:00
And although Amazon's practices and
culture are very obviously problematic,


00:23:22:02 - 00:23:26:09
I think it's also possible to consider
this company's violent way of operating


00:23:26:09 - 00:23:30:22
in the same frame as it as
it is to think about its use.


00:23:30:24 - 00:23:33:11
During the Ghost Ship relief efforts,


00:23:33:11 - 00:23:38:02
in other words, a case for Amazon Wish List
as a site of care isn't to refute


00:23:38:04 - 00:23:41:09
the sort of varied
and serious critiques of the site,


00:23:41:11 - 00:23:44:04
but to name it as a site of care


00:23:44:06 - 00:23:46:00
is to is to ask what it means


00:23:46:00 - 00:23:51:15
to inclined toward a site of violence
like Amazon.


00:23:51:17 - 00:23:53:09
Feminist philosopher Adriana


00:23:53:09 - 00:23:57:08
Cavarero's Theory of Inclinations
really useful here.


00:23:57:10 - 00:24:02:01
Cavarero argues that vertical posture or the figure
of the upright man has historically


00:24:02:05 - 00:24:06:12
and especially in philosophy,
come to stand for the empowered subject.


00:24:06:14 - 00:24:09:09
By contrast,
the image of the body bent over


00:24:09:09 - 00:24:13:02
inclined toward
an object is a display of vulnerability.


00:24:13:04 - 00:24:16:03
To be inclined toward
something also suggests weakness


00:24:16:03 - 00:24:20:02
or an absence of will to remain upright.


00:24:20:04 - 00:24:24:08
So, for example, she uses Da Vinci's
The Virgin and Child with St. Anne,


00:24:24:08 - 00:24:29:03
to show how maternal inclination
has historically been portrayed in art.


00:24:29:05 - 00:24:33:13
In this image, we see Mary
sitting in incline toward Baby Jesus.


00:24:33:15 - 00:24:37:01
The point here is that the maternal figure
is being pulled in against her


00:24:37:01 - 00:24:40:01
will toward that
which that which she must care for.


00:24:40:01 - 00:24:44:12
So in this case, it's her child cares
represented by the gesture of inclining,


00:24:44:12 - 00:24:49:17
and is therefore understood
kind of historically to be a weakness.


00:24:49:19 - 00:24:52:00
But the new postural geometry


00:24:52:00 - 00:24:56:10
that Cavarero is proposing is one
where inclination gets equated with care,


00:24:56:14 - 00:25:00:19
and more care is politically
revolutionary, as Cavarero puts it.


00:25:00:19 - 00:25:04:09
Inclination could work as a module
for a different, more disruptive


00:25:04:09 - 00:25:09:18
and revolutionary geometry, whose aim
is to rethink the very core of community.


00:25:09:20 - 00:25:13:09
So a feminist perspective on inclination


00:25:13:11 - 00:25:16:14
as a gesture of care calls for reading,
bending not as a weakness,


00:25:16:14 - 00:25:21:12
but as a posture
that actually sustains community.


00:25:21:14 - 00:25:25:20
And so what if activating on the margins
might simultaneously mean standing up to


00:25:25:20 - 00:25:29:22
and resisting companies like Amazon,
but also being inclined toward


00:25:29:22 - 00:25:32:22
its unanticipated, life
sustaining functions.


00:25:32:23 - 00:25:34:10
So in the case of the Ghost Ship Fire


00:25:34:10 - 00:25:38:03
relief efforts,
Amazon gets used to facilitate survival.


00:25:38:05 - 00:25:41:13
I think we can read this example
as a feminist tactic that centered


00:25:41:13 - 00:25:46:19
on inclining toward a site that it also,
of course, makes sense to stand against.


00:25:46:21 - 00:25:49:12
We have to embrace
bending in an age of amplification


00:25:49:12 - 00:25:54:23
that tends to measure
who's standing the tallest.


00:25:55:00 - 00:25:57:19
The turn toward
thinking about resistance in a minor key


00:25:57:19 - 00:26:02:07
is not to discount forms of digital
activism that center speaking out.


00:26:02:09 - 00:26:05:23
Instead, it offers an expanded
understanding of resistance, grounded


00:26:05:23 - 00:26:11:09
by examples of tactics employed by those
for whom amplification is not the goal.


00:26:11:11 - 00:26:14:13
Sometimes this means refusing
normative ways of technologies.


00:26:14:13 - 00:26:18:06
Other times it means recognizing that
in this age of amplication,


00:26:18:06 - 00:26:22:24
that's led to the celebration of platforms
as tools for making voices heard.


00:26:23:01 - 00:26:25:23
Visibility actually becomes
antithetical to the survival


00:26:25:23 - 00:26:34:19
and care of particular communities.


00:26:34:21 - 00:26:36:00
Okay.


00:26:36:00 - 00:26:38:06
So I'm going to turn now
to to showing us how


00:26:38:06 - 00:26:41:21
to rethink platforms that power sorry,


00:26:41:24 - 00:26:45:21
through the sort of feminist media
theory lens that I've offered here


00:26:45:23 - 00:26:49:24
and how this might help us
make sense of the moment.


00:26:50:01 - 00:26:51:08
Over the past three years,


00:26:51:08 - 00:26:55:20
we've seen that for many folks,
specifically those marked by race,


00:26:55:20 - 00:27:00:10
gender, disability, class,
staying alive has become more complicated.


00:27:00:12 - 00:27:02:00
A global pandemic.


00:27:02:00 - 00:27:05:23
Large scale Black Lives Matter movement
that began in late May 2020


00:27:06:00 - 00:27:11:05
and even the insurrection at the US
Capitol last two years ago,


00:27:11:07 - 00:27:14:04
have all made it increasingly evident
that we must think about


00:27:14:04 - 00:27:18:07
what our strategies for for living in
the future are going to be


00:27:18:09 - 00:27:21:13
and that I think these are questions
we could turn to media and communication


00:27:21:13 - 00:27:26:08
studies in our studies of platforms
to to think through.


00:27:26:10 - 00:27:26:22
So take,


00:27:26:22 - 00:27:30:00
for instance,
the beginning of the pandemic in Michigan,


00:27:30:00 - 00:27:34:12
when a group of armed men,
armed protesters stormed the Capitol


00:27:34:14 - 00:27:38:18
carrying guns and demanding
that stay at home orders be lifted.


00:27:38:20 - 00:27:42:21
Since this first protest in Michigan,
similar demonstrations


00:27:42:21 - 00:27:47:22
have been carried out across the US,
as well as in some major Canadian cities,


00:27:48:03 - 00:27:51:07
most notably in Ottawa,
but also here in Toronto


00:27:51:09 - 00:27:54:19
and Vancouver.


00:27:54:21 - 00:27:57:22
In Clearwater, Florida,
a group of demonstrators rallied outside


00:27:57:22 - 00:28:01:23
of the courthouse in protest
of the state's ongoing shutdown of gyms.


00:28:02:00 - 00:28:05:15
I bring this one up because
it's my favorite and just the dumbest one.


00:28:05:17 - 00:28:09:12
The assembly of demonstrators
began doing pushups and squats,


00:28:09:14 - 00:28:14:07
holding up placards that read
give me gains or give me death.


00:28:14:09 - 00:28:18:12
These are now well-known protests
that perversely overemphasize


00:28:18:14 - 00:28:22:23
the products of a politics oriented around
logics of platform visibility.


00:28:22:23 - 00:28:26:23
And indeed, to this idea of rectitude
or standing up to and against.


00:28:26:24 - 00:28:34:07
They're so clearly not oriented around
ideas of collective care or survival.


00:28:34:09 - 00:28:37:06
But platform
mediated care has also presented itself


00:28:37:06 - 00:28:40:20
over the last three years
in efforts of mutual aid.


00:28:40:20 - 00:28:45:14
For instance, the use of digital platforms
during this time has been really simple


00:28:45:14 - 00:28:46:10
and effective.


00:28:46:10 - 00:28:47:17
Google Docs and Facebook


00:28:47:17 - 00:28:51:16
groups have been used to organize
mutual aid across the world.


00:28:51:18 - 00:28:54:08
For instance,
people have organized porch drop offs


00:28:54:08 - 00:28:57:08
of home cooked meals for those struggling
to pay for food


00:28:57:10 - 00:29:01:01
here in Toronto.


00:29:01:03 - 00:29:03:18
Even as people began convening again


00:29:03:18 - 00:29:07:20
in May 2020 and in June 2020 to protest
police brutality,


00:29:08:01 - 00:29:12:13
there's been a really notable, notable
shift in an emphasis on care and survival.


00:29:12:15 - 00:29:15:09
In Toronto, for instance, people
attending Black Lives


00:29:15:09 - 00:29:19:11
Matter marches
in that summer of 2020 were wearing masks.


00:29:19:11 - 00:29:23:05
They were passing out pool noodles
to help observe social distancing.


00:29:23:07 - 00:29:27:17
They were passing out
hand sanitizer and gloves.


00:29:27:19 - 00:29:30:02
But we
saw this kind of care at the Black Lives


00:29:30:02 - 00:29:34:09
Matter protests alongside a gesture
previously tied to Black resistance


00:29:34:09 - 00:29:38:08
that of kneeling
being appropriated by power.


00:29:38:10 - 00:29:41:07
For instance, former Toronto police chief
Mark Saunders,


00:29:41:07 - 00:29:43:06
Justin Trudeau, cops in the U.S.


00:29:43:06 - 00:29:48:20
have all kneeled with protesters
for photo ops.


00:29:48:22 - 00:29:50:19
And in another example,


00:29:50:19 - 00:29:54:18
example, during a Raptors game, singer
Jessie Reyez kneeled while singing the


00:29:54:18 - 00:30:00:22
national anthem wearing a Breonna Taylor
mask from the top of the CN Tower.


00:30:00:24 - 00:30:03:24
And as I was watching this, I couldn't
help think about what it means for someone


00:30:03:24 - 00:30:08:05
to kneel while also being elevated
to the highest point in the city.


00:30:08:07 - 00:30:10:11
This stripped the gesture of its
meaning to me.


00:30:10:11 - 00:30:13:16
It highlights
why a media theory of platform elevation


00:30:13:21 - 00:30:20:08
might actually help us
understand protest right now.


00:30:20:10 - 00:30:21:24
So these gestures


00:30:21:24 - 00:30:26:19
show us the limits of amplification
for feminist in race politics.


00:30:26:22 - 00:30:31:04
They show us how these are things
that so often get appropriated by power.


00:30:31:06 - 00:30:35:20
But outside the confines of platform
logics, the sort of misuse gets harder.


00:30:35:22 - 00:30:37:13
Power cannot so easily appropriate


00:30:37:13 - 00:30:39:13
how we collectively care for each other.


00:30:39:13 - 00:30:42:18
So I think a study of platform
media will remain a really important way


00:30:42:18 - 00:30:45:24
to think through this problem.


00:30:46:01 - 00:30:50:12
I've also been taken more recently
with how the January sixth insurrection


00:30:50:12 - 00:30:53:18
might make us reconsider elevation
as a potential feminist


00:30:53:18 - 00:30:56:18
strategy too the insurrection.


00:30:56:19 - 00:31:01:15
I probably don't have to give context to
a bunch of Americans here, but but I will.


00:31:01:17 - 00:31:03:09
Staged by Trump supporters


00:31:03:09 - 00:31:07:00
called to action by the president himself
via his Twitter account,


00:31:07:02 - 00:31:11:01
stormed the Capitol building
in an attempt to overturn the 2020 U.S.


00:31:11:01 - 00:31:13:16
presidential election.


00:31:13:16 - 00:31:17:01
Immediately,
the role of social media platforms


00:31:17:03 - 00:31:19:23
played in violence in the violent
breaching of the Capitol


00:31:19:23 - 00:31:23:01
became really evident
through ongoing discussions of what


00:31:23:01 - 00:31:27:19
it might mean to deplatform
Donald Trump and his supporters.


00:31:27:21 - 00:31:28:16
We saw this


00:31:28:16 - 00:31:32:08
in the sort of uptake by media
and communication scholars


00:31:32:10 - 00:31:34:20
who all do
this really vital work on platforms


00:31:34:20 - 00:31:38:09
in their policies
as they began identifying the need


00:31:38:11 - 00:31:42:11
to focus on platforms,
content, moderation,


00:31:42:13 - 00:31:44:09
and think about how


00:31:44:09 - 00:31:48:14
how platform companies gatekeep
public discourse.


00:31:48:16 - 00:31:51:11
And while I thought that these were
all significant concern concerns,


00:31:51:11 - 00:31:52:19
I think they still leave questions


00:31:52:19 - 00:31:56:03
about the sort of assumed
political utility of platforms,


00:31:56:07 - 00:32:01:14
which I've been trying to get at
for the last half hour here.


00:32:01:16 - 00:32:03:21
For instance, images of insurrectionists


00:32:03:21 - 00:32:07:21
scaling the Capitol circulated on
and after January sixth.


00:32:07:23 - 00:32:11:08
Again,
we're seeing the sort of climbing upward


00:32:11:10 - 00:32:13:17
in how and how being elevated is almost


00:32:13:17 - 00:32:16:17
a masculinist tactic of those


00:32:16:21 - 00:32:20:15
who then get elevated to be right
wing heroes.


00:32:20:17 - 00:32:24:00
I think this shows us how climbing right,
how being elevated,


00:32:24:02 - 00:32:30:13
how mediated elevation more broadly
might actually be a limiting strategy


00:32:30:15 - 00:32:32:02
during the Capitol Insurrection.


00:32:32:02 - 00:32:35:04
Another platform of sorts
provides us with a different angle


00:32:35:04 - 00:32:38:09
for considering the platform's
power to elevate.


00:32:38:11 - 00:32:41:22
We might turn to the now
viral image of congressional


00:32:41:23 - 00:32:46:22
the Congressional House podium
being stolen by it by an insurrectionist.


00:32:46:24 - 00:32:49:23
In the image, we see a Trump supporter.


00:32:49:23 - 00:32:52:04
Sporting a pom pom toque with Trump 


00:32:52:04 - 00:32:55:21
scrawled across it, smiling
and waving for the camera while


00:32:55:23 - 00:32:59:17
carrying Nancy Pelosi's lectern
through the Capitol building.


00:32:59:19 - 00:33:02:07
That there was so much outcry
from both the left


00:33:02:07 - 00:33:05:13
and the right about this
specific media object being forcibly


00:33:05:13 - 00:33:11:05
and sort of shamelessly removed reveals to us
a political investment in media objects


00:33:11:05 - 00:33:16:06
that bestow the power to speak,
to raise one's voice over all others.


00:33:16:12 - 00:33:19:17
We need to ask why
and if the right to speak publicly


00:33:19:17 - 00:33:23:09
and via the platform
actually alters our material conditions.


00:33:23:11 - 00:33:24:16
In other words,


00:33:24:16 - 00:33:28:10
we need to return to the logics
of the platform as media objects


00:33:28:12 - 00:33:32:01
that elevate and amplify
to consider how our investment


00:33:32:01 - 00:33:34:16
in these media objects
might actually limit the potential


00:33:34:16 - 00:33:39:03
for other forms of resistance
and modes of living today.


00:33:39:05 - 00:33:39:24
The presence of the


00:33:39:24 - 00:33:43:09
platform does the signifying work
of democracy in action.


00:33:43:11 - 00:33:46:05
It's a it's a democratic veneer
for the people.


00:33:46:05 - 00:33:49:15
One that gestures
toward the potential for social change.


00:33:49:17 - 00:33:54:10
An elevated idea or phrase,
thought, body, or slogan can be understood


00:33:54:10 - 00:33:58:19
as the idea of democracy
facilitated by the platform.


00:33:58:21 - 00:34:02:13
What's pressing about research on platform
elevation is a need to understand


00:34:02:13 - 00:34:07:02
platforms as long standing media devices
of elevation and amplification


00:34:07:04 - 00:34:11:11
that have come to structure
the social and political.


00:34:11:13 - 00:34:15:19
So related to this is a third set of
images I think we might focus on instead.


00:34:15:19 - 00:34:18:24
And there of the black and brown folks
who were tasked with cleaning up


00:34:18:24 - 00:34:22:20
the Capitol following the insurrection,


00:34:22:22 - 00:34:25:19
just,
I guess, about a month and a half ago.


00:34:25:19 - 00:34:29:09
Footage of the insurrection was released
that includes the speaker of the House,


00:34:29:09 - 00:34:34:23
Nancy Pelosi, expressing her concern
with the time it will take to clean up


00:34:34:23 - 00:34:40:18
the poo poo that they're making all over
literally and figuratively in the Capitol.


00:34:40:20 - 00:34:42:23
And I'm really
interested in these images of people


00:34:42:23 - 00:34:47:03
that are literally crouched, kneeling
right down low cleaning,


00:34:47:03 - 00:34:49:08
because I think it illustrates
that we might instead


00:34:49:08 - 00:34:52:18
turn our attention away
from those elevated to the sort of labor


00:34:52:18 - 00:34:59:02
that's required to maintain the platform
in the first place.


00:34:59:04 - 00:35:01:21
My work makes the argument
that feminist strategizing


00:35:01:21 - 00:35:05:12
needs to go beyond the platform
and platform mediated elevation.


00:35:05:18 - 00:35:08:18
The underpinning
proposition of this research


00:35:08:21 - 00:35:12:04
is that feminism
must go under the platform behind it


00:35:12:06 - 00:35:17:03
and recognize the organizing labor,
the politics of social reproduction


00:35:17:07 - 00:35:21:24
The intertwining and often
at at odd demands of care, invisibility


00:35:22:01 - 00:35:25:02
and the uneven desires for legibility
that are often


00:35:25:02 - 00:35:28:02
actually obscured
by the actual medium of the platform.


00:35:28:05 - 00:35:33:16
In our increased sort of focus on it,
as we as we do digital studies,


00:35:33:18 - 00:35:38:03
we see in these examples, in these images,
examples of the organizing labor


00:35:38:03 - 00:35:42:09
and the politics of social reproduction
that are so often left to black and brown


00:35:42:09 - 00:35:46:04
people that have obviously been obscured
by our own investment in who has the


00:35:46:04 - 00:35:48:23
right to speak.


00:35:49:00 - 00:35:51:07
For some to be elevated by the platform


00:35:51:07 - 00:35:54:20
is a politically powerful position
because it extends visibility.


00:35:54:23 - 00:35:58:10
You can both be seen and seen more
when you are elevated


00:35:58:12 - 00:35:59:15
and contemporary and popular.


00:35:59:15 - 00:36:03:00
Feminism's
reliance on the platform is concerning


00:36:03:02 - 00:36:07:03
because its dominant spatial
strategies are are based on an assumption


00:36:07:09 - 00:36:12:21
That elevation, and by extension
visibility, are experienced uniformly.


00:36:12:23 - 00:36:13:06
Okay.


00:36:13:06 - 00:36:18:06
So I'm going to stop here and


00:36:18:08 - 00:36:20:18
maybe take questions.


00:36:20:18 - 00:36:27:00
Thanks, everyone.


00:36:27:02 - 00:36:29:04
Thank you so much,


00:36:29:04 - 00:36:30:12
Rianka, for this.


00:36:30:12 - 00:36:32:14
Just amazing


00:36:32:14 - 00:36:36:00
thought provoking talk that you gave.


00:36:36:02 - 00:36:36:13
Yeah.


00:36:36:13 - 00:36:40:06
So as I said in the chat,


00:36:40:08 - 00:36:42:01
if you have questions, feel free


00:36:42:01 - 00:36:45:02
to raise your hand via Zoom and ask.


00:36:45:02 - 00:36:45:19
I'll respond


00:36:45:19 - 00:36:49:21
to people in the order that they ask
that they sort of raise their hand.


00:36:49:23 - 00:36:55:08
Also,
if you are uncomfortable with that sort of


00:36:55:10 - 00:36:57:23
engagement, feel free to


00:36:57:23 - 00:37:01:21
write your question in the chat
and I will sort of respond.


00:37:01:23 - 00:37:05:13
I'll I'll read the question for you
that way.


00:37:05:15 - 00:37:06:02
I'll be yes.


00:37:06:02 - 00:37:12:18
And now I will
I will open the floor for questions so yeah.


00:37:12:20 - 00:37:27:21
Let's begin.


00:37:27:23 - 00:37:28:06
Okay.


00:37:28:06 - 00:37:31:12
So I guess if no one has a question
right now,


00:37:31:14 - 00:37:34:24
I will sort of start.


00:37:35:01 - 00:37:39:09
First Rianka, I've been sort of,
I think, in my own work.


00:37:39:11 - 00:37:44:13
And on sneakers and stuff as I've really been sort of
thinking about the sort of idea


00:37:44:13 - 00:37:48:20
of the platform and how athletes sort of
think of the platform,


00:37:48:21 - 00:37:53:07
specifically basketball players,
in light of the sort of


00:37:53:09 - 00:37:58:06
Kyrie Irving
sort of Amazon promotion of the, ah,


00:37:58:08 - 00:38:04:15
I guess his tweet promoting the Hebrews
to Negroes, anti-Semitic video


00:38:04:17 - 00:38:11:05
via his Twitter page, and then sort of his
response saying that sort of his


00:38:11:07 - 00:38:14:07
return retweet or reposting


00:38:14:10 - 00:38:18:16
of that video is not sort of


00:38:18:18 - 00:38:21:11
a sort of promotion, right?


00:38:21:11 - 00:38:25:11
It's just sort of him
using his sort of Twitter profile.


00:38:25:11 - 00:38:30:10
And then the sort of resulting sort of
after is after sort of that sort of,


00:38:30:12 - 00:38:34:08
I think, ugly back and forth
with the media and then his suspension


00:38:34:10 - 00:38:38:12
and then the sort of protests from


00:38:38:14 - 00:38:40:18
Black Israelites


00:38:40:18 - 00:38:44:14
at the Barclays Center
and also Jaylen Brown's sort of response.


00:38:44:14 - 00:38:46:11
And that's, I think, a poor contextualized


00:38:46:11 - 00:38:50:17
contextualization for those
who are unfamiliar of that event.


00:38:50:19 - 00:38:53:23
But I'm curious sort of
and then also, I think


00:38:54:00 - 00:38:56:08
more recently LeBron James


00:38:56:08 - 00:39:01:07
as a response question to the media
last night about the sort of Jerry


00:39:01:07 - 00:39:05:04
Jones footage asking,
I think a very sort of valid question.


00:39:05:06 - 00:39:09:15
Why are you not asking me
about sort of Jerry Jones photo


00:39:09:15 - 00:39:14:21
with a picture of Jerry Jones when he was
14 that's been unearthed recently


00:39:14:23 - 00:39:20:02
at a at an integration protest


00:39:20:04 - 00:39:22:23
in in Arkansas.


00:39:22:23 - 00:39:27:11
And so I guess the question I have for you
then is sort of


00:39:27:13 - 00:39:32:24
when sort of considering sort of


00:39:33:01 - 00:39:36:21
raced bodies
using sort of platforms like social media


00:39:36:23 - 00:39:41:03
and particularly sort of black
and brown bodies who have been elevated.


00:39:41:04 - 00:39:41:11
Right.


00:39:41:11 - 00:39:46:08
So Kyrie Irving, LeBron James,
David Brown, some of the athletes I've named


00:39:46:11 - 00:39:52:03
are sort of have been wildly elevated
because of their celebrity status


00:39:52:05 - 00:39:55:05
and branding deals


00:39:55:08 - 00:39:58:10
from their athletic greatness
and accolades.


00:39:58:10 - 00:40:01:01
I'm curious, sort of


00:40:01:01 - 00:40:03:06
one maybe sort of


00:40:03:06 - 00:40:06:04
what you make of that
of that sort of specific thing


00:40:06:04 - 00:40:10:06
in the light of your sort of book
studying platforms, but two sort of


00:40:10:08 - 00:40:16:15
what do you make of sort of in general
sort of this idea that sort of


00:40:16:17 - 00:40:18:04
when we


00:40:18:04 - 00:40:22:17
when we use our sort
of personal social media sort of accounts


00:40:22:22 - 00:40:26:00
to sort of repost, to quote, tweet,


00:40:26:00 - 00:40:29:00
to retweet, to like


00:40:29:05 - 00:40:30:18
to comment? Right.


00:40:30:18 - 00:40:35:09
What do you sort of make make of the fact
that sort of we are all being folded


00:40:35:11 - 00:40:40:09
into a very expansive
but very sort of intimate, sort of all


00:40:40:09 - 00:40:44:18
encompassing, encompassing capitalist
regime of sort of promotion and sale?


00:40:44:20 - 00:40:48:05
I know that was a long question
sorry about that.


00:40:48:07 - 00:40:48:21
It's okay.


00:40:48:21 - 00:40:51:00
And I know you just wanted to ask
a basketball question.


00:40:51:00 - 00:40:52:06
But no, I did.


00:40:52:06 - 00:40:54:19
Yeah, just


00:40:54:19 - 00:40:56:23
I mean,


00:40:56:23 - 00:40:58:17
yeah, I think I think so.


00:40:58:17 - 00:41:03:24
In part, this is like a sort of question
about, about, about platform content in.


00:41:03:24 - 00:41:09:00
And what I want to do
is, is, is stop thinking about the content


00:41:09:02 - 00:41:12:09
or like what get shared on platforms
and how they're sort of like


00:41:12:14 - 00:41:15:14
what their what
what sort of politics they're mediating.


00:41:15:16 - 00:41:19:11
And so while I've interested in here
is why the only possible


00:41:19:11 - 00:41:22:11
and available
response is to is to speak up right.


00:41:22:14 - 00:41:24:07
Is to


00:41:24:09 - 00:41:27:06
is is to wait on Kyrie's apology,
for example.


00:41:27:06 - 00:41:27:13
Right.


00:41:27:13 - 00:41:30:17
So like
what about the sort of like conditions


00:41:30:17 - 00:41:36:15
that the platform has created requires
and requires a voice.


00:41:36:15 - 00:41:36:20
Right.


00:41:36:20 - 00:41:40:17
And requires
this overemphasis on on speaking up. Why?


00:41:40:18 - 00:41:45:04
Why is like quietness
not available or an or an option,


00:41:45:06 - 00:41:47:18
which isn't to say, right,
that Kyrie should have


00:41:47:18 - 00:41:52:06
should have said nothing
and that and that would have been okay.


00:41:52:08 - 00:41:56:05
But just and we kind of like see this


00:41:56:07 - 00:41:58:16
yet like the thing
the thing with LeBron yesterday


00:41:58:16 - 00:42:03:03
asking people are asking like why aren't
you asking me about this other thing?


00:42:03:05 - 00:42:04:13
He's doing the same thing, right?


00:42:04:13 - 00:42:10:08
He's like, he's
asking like he's asking about why people


00:42:10:10 - 00:42:13:22
keep keep asking him to to talk,
which is like


00:42:13:24 - 00:42:18:10
if you if you read someone like Kevin
Quarshie who, like, talks about what


00:42:18:12 - 00:42:21:21
the sort of like politics
of being quiet in silence and


00:42:21:21 - 00:42:26:19
why is it that these black men are always
being asked to speak on their platform?


00:42:26:21 - 00:42:29:10
I think that's I think
that's really interesting right now.


00:42:29:10 - 00:42:32:07
Right. A sort of like,


00:42:32:09 - 00:42:32:21
yeah,


00:42:32:21 - 00:42:36:19
emphasis on if you have a platform,
you must use it to be loud.


00:42:36:21 - 00:42:40:10
It's interesting.


00:42:40:12 - 00:42:41:21
No. And then


00:42:41:21 - 00:42:46:07
No it does, it does answer,
answer my question and then I guess


00:42:46:07 - 00:42:49:18
if no one else has a question right
now, I'll a follow up.


00:42:49:20 - 00:42:54:16
Does anyone else have a question
Cause I'll happily past the floor


00:42:54:18 - 00:42:55:17
right now?


00:42:55:17 - 00:42:56:03
Okay.


00:42:56:03 - 00:42:57:15
Ask a follow up.


00:42:57:15 - 00:43:00:03
No, no, Aaron, ask your follow up and I'll ask.


00:43:00:03 - 00:43:00:16
Okay. Yeah.


00:43:00:16 - 00:43:04:11
So so speaking of this sort of idea
of sort of being like the


00:43:04:17 - 00:43:10:15
the sort of the structure of platform
sort of requires


00:43:10:17 - 00:43:13:03
sort of this idea of speaking up.


00:43:13:03 - 00:43:17:05
Where up is sort of both sort of


00:43:17:07 - 00:43:19:20
a sort of mediation of height.


00:43:19:20 - 00:43:20:16
Right.


00:43:20:16 - 00:43:23:13
But also immediate mediation,
sort of amplification.


00:43:23:13 - 00:43:23:19
Right.


00:43:23:19 - 00:43:27:07
So speaking louder,
I'm curious sort of what you make of and


00:43:27:09 - 00:43:30:06
I thought about this
and I saw your sort of


00:43:30:06 - 00:43:32:24
image of the Trump account
and the egg after it had been blocked.


00:43:32:24 - 00:43:38:00
I'm curious, what do you make of sort of


00:43:38:02 - 00:43:41:12
sort of people and sort of


00:43:41:14 - 00:43:45:15
groups using sort of technologies


00:43:45:19 - 00:43:50:08
of hiding
an obfuscation on on platforms,


00:43:50:08 - 00:43:55:08
for example, sort of last tweeting
from egg like accounts with eggs.


00:43:55:10 - 00:44:00:07
People have bots
existing in general, people having sort of


00:44:00:09 - 00:44:01:10
fake accounts or whatever.


00:44:01:10 - 00:44:04:17
I'm curious,
what does your book deal at all with


00:44:04:19 - 00:44:09:03
I'm thinking and research
deal at all the sort of people,


00:44:09:05 - 00:44:13:22
that sort of nexus of people
hiding on your platforms, right.


00:44:13:24 - 00:44:19:22
But also using that sort of camouflage
as a way to sort of speak up and speak


00:44:19:22 - 00:44:23:23
loudly about things that they may be
uncomfortable saying or sharing.


00:44:24:00 - 00:44:30:12
And under their own name.


00:44:30:14 - 00:44:34:14
It it doesn't
I mean, I'm interested in and yet,


00:44:34:16 - 00:44:39:17
like tactics of of obfuscation
a little bit, but more in in in


00:44:39:17 - 00:44:43:10
how the platform has like created
the conditions of possibility that people


00:44:43:14 - 00:44:46:13
that people need to do that right.


00:44:46:15 - 00:44:49:15
And also I guess I if I was to do it


00:44:49:21 - 00:44:54:06
or to to include
something like that, I'd be interested in


00:44:54:08 - 00:44:57:06
who's choosing to hide themselves
and why.


00:44:57:06 - 00:44:59:01
Right.


00:44:59:01 - 00:45:02:05
But yeah, I would say not, not a ton.


00:45:02:05 - 00:45:05:05
I've been I've been


00:45:05:07 - 00:45:08:24
I'm interested in, in the fact that, like,
if we if we go to the January


00:45:08:24 - 00:45:13:08
6th insurrection there, like
no one thought to mask their face at that.


00:45:13:08 - 00:45:13:14
Right.


00:45:13:14 - 00:45:16:22
That they were like
so proud of their stupid faces


00:45:16:22 - 00:45:20:09
like circulating on the internet
like that, that photo of the guy


00:45:20:09 - 00:45:23:18
stealing the lectern
and he is smiling for the camera,


00:45:23:20 - 00:45:26:06
which like speaks to this sort of


00:45:26:06 - 00:45:29:22
right relationship
to to space and to the law.


00:45:29:22 - 00:45:32:22
I guess that
that that's interesting to me.


00:45:32:23 - 00:45:33:05
Right.


00:45:33:05 - 00:45:38:17
The people who don't seem to feel
the need to to hide in any way


00:45:38:19 - 00:45:39:20
and I guess like


00:45:39:20 - 00:45:43:00
related is why is it that our feminist
tactics


00:45:43:00 - 00:45:46:12
seem to be taking up those same


00:45:46:14 - 00:45:47:21
sort of politics?


00:45:47:21 - 00:45:51:17
Like why is it that popular feminism


00:45:51:19 - 00:45:53:04
wants to adopt those same


00:45:53:04 - 00:45:57:01
or use those same politics of the right
to to be loud and to be seen?


00:45:57:05 - 00:46:00:01
Right.
Why don't we try something different?


00:46:00:01 - 00:46:02:24
Is sort of my question.


00:46:02:24 - 00:46:06:00
Thank you so much
for answering both of those questions.


00:46:06:00 - 00:46:08:19
I really appreciate it.


00:46:08:19 - 00:46:10:06
Ray I think you had a question. Yeah.


00:46:10:06 - 00:46:13:19
So I have a question and I apologize.


00:46:13:19 - 00:46:17:12
I'm so sorry
that I missed most of your time.


00:46:17:14 - 00:46:22:08
And but based on my talk, my questions
are going to come from where I was before.


00:46:22:10 - 00:46:25:00
So part of it is that so


00:46:25:00 - 00:46:28:23
how do you think about the I don't know,
we'll just call them opposites


00:46:29:00 - 00:46:34:04
of kind of public digital platforms versus


00:46:34:06 - 00:46:37:13
the dark rooms of power.


00:46:37:15 - 00:46:39:14
So I work for National Science Foundation


00:46:39:14 - 00:46:43:07
and I just came from a dark room of power,


00:46:43:09 - 00:46:44:20
meaning that there


00:46:44:20 - 00:46:48:03
what happened in that room,
decisions were being made.


00:46:48:05 - 00:46:50:19
However,


00:46:50:19 - 00:46:52:23
there is no


00:46:52:23 - 00:46:56:04
voice, there's no platform,
there's no projection,


00:46:56:04 - 00:47:01:21
there's no performance,
there's no public action of that power


00:47:01:23 - 00:47:04:20
besides legislation.


00:47:04:20 - 00:47:09:03
Some of that happens in dark, clunky rooms.


00:47:09:05 - 00:47:14:03
So so I think the question is right.


00:47:14:05 - 00:47:20:14
Can the platform be a way of exposing


00:47:20:16 - 00:47:24:13
the power that is actually cloaked
in the dark rooms,


00:47:24:15 - 00:47:28:04
or is it just this


00:47:28:07 - 00:47:33:00
public performative expression of anger,
violence,


00:47:33:02 - 00:47:37:00
happiness, joy, being an asshole,


00:47:37:02 - 00:47:41:11
being a beautiful person


00:47:41:13 - 00:47:43:03
when there are other things


00:47:43:03 - 00:47:47:22
going on under the surface that


00:47:47:24 - 00:47:53:10
in a sense, is it


00:47:53:12 - 00:47:56:15
is that is a bright shiny thing


00:47:56:17 - 00:47:58:13
that's


00:47:58:13 - 00:48:02:08
about right shininess? And it's not about


00:48:02:10 - 00:48:05:01
power and politics.


00:48:05:01 - 00:48:06:16
Yeah. Okay.


00:48:06:16 - 00:48:09:09
Yeah, I mean, I think so.


00:48:09:09 - 00:48:14:16
So yeah I will say that at the I,
I kind of started the talk by saying that


00:48:14:16 - 00:48:18:08
I think right platforms have always


00:48:18:10 - 00:48:22:24
and even beyond the digital platform
extended power in different ways so right.


00:48:22:24 - 00:48:28:05
They've been a
power has asked us to mount the platform


00:48:28:07 - 00:48:31:05
and I think like it's really interesting


00:48:31:05 - 00:48:34:16
that we might, you know,
one strategy might be two to turn back


00:48:34:16 - 00:48:40:15
and ask and ask power to also be elevated
by the platform, right, to make visible


00:48:40:17 - 00:48:41:11
their politics.


00:48:41:11 - 00:48:47:04
But I think, yeah, I'm more interested in
like in understanding


00:48:47:06 - 00:48:49:10
that or questioning why we think


00:48:49:10 - 00:48:53:06
about being elevated
as a sort of power position, right?


00:48:53:07 - 00:48:57:22
When we see what could be gained from,
from like having dark rooms.


00:48:57:22 - 00:49:01:15
Right. So why, why don't we also


00:49:01:17 - 00:49:04:00
recede into the darkness, right.


00:49:04:00 - 00:49:09:23
And make some decisions rather than like
why is that not considered


00:49:10:00 - 00:49:14:10
sort of like equally available option
and not not for all protest.


00:49:14:10 - 00:49:19:04
But but I think that's
how popular feminist politics have failed.


00:49:19:04 - 00:49:19:14
Right.


00:49:19:14 - 00:49:24:13
By by assuming the political utility
of of being visible.


00:49:24:15 - 00:49:25:09
um. Right.


00:49:25:09 - 00:49:28:19
So why so instead of adopting the tactics
of of the alt right


00:49:28:20 - 00:49:31:20
to make their politics
increasingly visible,


00:49:32:01 - 00:49:36:16
why not Why not learn from from
you and your friends in the dark room?


00:49:36:18 - 00:49:37:04
Right.


00:49:37:04 - 00:49:40:13
That's like that's
maybe how to how to how to rethink.


00:49:40:17 - 00:49:40:23
Right.


00:49:40:23 - 00:49:43:12
Our relationship
to platforms in some ways.


00:49:43:12 - 00:49:44:12
Yeah.


00:49:44:12 - 00:49:45:18
And I see.


00:49:45:18 - 00:49:48:07
I see Lindsay's here,
so I'm going to I'm going to call.


00:49:48:07 - 00:49:50:19
I'm going to call you
out, Lindsay, a little bit.


00:49:50:21 - 00:49:53:16
But I mean, it's
I think you've got the tech and justice lab,


00:49:53:16 - 00:49:57:04
so I mean, so so the question is like,
so where does a platform


00:49:57:06 - 00:49:58:05
in your conversation?


00:49:58:05 - 00:50:00:08
Where's a place of justice
in the platform?


00:50:00:08 - 00:50:01:12
Right.


00:50:01:12 - 00:50:08:00
Is does justice does does being loud


00:50:08:02 - 00:50:09:09
promote justice?


00:50:09:09 - 00:50:14:04
Does being on platform promote justice,
or is it just I mean, how can a sense can


00:50:14:04 - 00:50:18:02
the platform be used as a tool
to inspire and motivate justice?


00:50:18:03 - 00:50:21:10
And I think some people would say,
well, yes, of course, but I'm not sure


00:50:21:16 - 00:50:24:16
how would you answer that question,


00:50:24:21 - 00:50:25:19
Me or Lindsay?


00:50:25:19 - 00:50:28:19
Yeah, I'll go to you. Okay.


00:50:28:22 - 00:50:34:06
So I mean, so the part
so part of what I think is that


00:50:34:08 - 00:50:38:05
we have this understanding
in a specifically in platform studies


00:50:38:07 - 00:50:39:09
that justice looks like


00:50:39:09 - 00:50:43:23
everyone figuring out how to have equal
footing on the platform right.


00:50:43:23 - 00:50:48:00
That everyone should be able
to equally be equally amplified.


00:50:48:00 - 00:50:49:12
Right.


00:50:49:14 - 00:50:52:18
And I want to and I want to think about


00:50:52:20 - 00:50:54:21
I don't actually think that's the case,
Right.


00:50:54:21 - 00:50:57:21
Like,
I don't think that liberation looks like


00:50:57:21 - 00:51:01:14
me being able to
climb as high on the Capitol


00:51:01:16 - 00:51:02:01
wall


00:51:02:01 - 00:51:04:18
as as as as Trump supporters. Right.


00:51:04:18 - 00:51:06:07
I want to think about like, liberation


00:51:06:07 - 00:51:10:10
looks like thinking about how platforms
might facilitate care, right.


00:51:10:10 - 00:51:14:23
And help helping us survive and sort of
increasingly shitty living conditions.


00:51:14:23 - 00:51:16:14
Right. So right.


00:51:16:14 - 00:51:20:03
If the platform helps me distribute
food to someone.


00:51:20:05 - 00:51:23:00
Right, that that's platform justice to me.


00:51:23:00 - 00:51:27:01
More than being able to equally speak.


00:51:27:03 - 00:51:31:00
So it's instrumental power
then in a sense,


00:51:31:02 - 00:51:33:20
I'm sorry.


00:51:33:20 - 00:51:36:07
At this time I'd love to ask a follow up
question and I don't know


00:51:36:07 - 00:51:38:13
what's going on with my lighting,
so my apologies.


00:51:38:13 - 00:51:42:01
It looks like a weird halo situation
on over here.


00:51:42:03 - 00:51:44:01
Rianka, thank you so much for your talk.


00:51:44:01 - 00:51:47:16
I learned so much about how to think about
complicating the assumption


00:51:47:16 - 00:51:48:20
that platforms are just going to be


00:51:48:20 - 00:51:51:20
a tool of amplification that plays out
evenly for all people.


00:51:51:20 - 00:51:54:17
I think you argue that super well,
and it was really compelling.


00:51:54:17 - 00:51:57:15
I think the example that
that was difficult for me to wrap


00:51:57:15 - 00:52:01:00
my head around was the Amazon wishlist
in particular, right?


00:52:01:02 - 00:52:03:00
Because I,
I understand what you're saying, right?


00:52:03:00 - 00:52:06:22
I understand that when people's like
material needs are on the line, sometimes


00:52:07:03 - 00:52:08:06
because of hegemony, right.


00:52:08:06 - 00:52:12:05
We need to use these these platforms
that are horrific to get what we need.


00:52:12:05 - 00:52:16:02
And yet at the same time, I also think
there's so much criticism out there


00:52:16:02 - 00:52:19:17
precisely about how our participation
in these platforms


00:52:19:17 - 00:52:23:02
reproduces structural oppression,
structural inequality.


00:52:23:02 - 00:52:24:08
And Amazon is one of these companies


00:52:24:08 - 00:52:26:19
that's just thoroughly anti-black
all the way down.


00:52:26:19 - 00:52:28:24
It cooperates with police and ICE.


00:52:28:24 - 00:52:32:10
Its logistics, warehouses are polluting
black communities disproportionately.


00:52:32:10 - 00:52:33:17
The list goes on and on. Right.


00:52:33:17 - 00:52:37:14
So I think I'm wondering
what are the losses or potential risks


00:52:37:14 - 00:52:42:07
of naming that kind that kind of thing
as a feminist praxis, right.


00:52:42:09 - 00:52:46:16
Especially if your feminism's
intersectional, if it's anti-capitalist.


00:52:46:18 - 00:52:49:04
Yep. Yeah, totally. So.


00:52:49:04 - 00:52:52:03
So I put this example in


00:52:52:03 - 00:52:54:24
because I, I understand.


00:52:54:24 - 00:52:57:15
like, the problem.


00:52:57:15 - 00:52:59:13
I think.


00:52:59:13 - 00:53:02:19
So part of what I'm, I'm trying to to get


00:53:02:19 - 00:53:05:24
and this is like the thing
that I'm trying to fix in the book, right?


00:53:06:00 - 00:53:10:02
So also that I'm doing this selfishly
because I know there's going to be people


00:53:10:02 - 00:53:11:01
like I think it's going to help.


00:53:11:01 - 00:53:13:15
I think it's going to help fix it
eventually. It's going to get fixed.


00:53:13:15 - 00:53:15:06
But and maybe I need to get rid of it.


00:53:15:06 - 00:53:21:06
But I think part of it
is to try to articulate that


00:53:21:08 - 00:53:25:20
that like me using an Amazon Wishlist


00:53:25:22 - 00:53:28:17
to send something to my to


00:53:28:17 - 00:53:32:03
my dad versus like someone,


00:53:32:05 - 00:53:34:15
someone who has like


00:53:34:15 - 00:53:36:24
the ghost ship fire thing is different, right?


00:53:36:24 - 00:53:40:12
Not to say
that there should be like the first


00:53:40:14 - 00:53:43:20
the first
response, but to say that we can think


00:53:43:20 - 00:53:47:20
about platforms in two frames right.


00:53:47:22 - 00:53:49:13
But I think right.


00:53:49:13 - 00:53:53:08
Which is sort of like this, this issue
with like you're trying to to articulate


00:53:53:08 - 00:53:55:06
what biopower power is. Right.


00:53:55:06 - 00:54:00:21
And that that sometimes these technologies
are life sustaining even when


00:54:00:23 - 00:54:03:16
they're also life taking is hard.


00:54:03:16 - 00:54:07:02
But to try I'm just trying
yeah I'm trying to


00:54:07:04 - 00:54:09:10
the way you said it,


00:54:09:10 - 00:54:12:15
it might be time after three years
to just stop trying to make it work.


00:54:12:15 - 00:54:14:21
But but you know, like.


00:54:14:21 - 00:54:16:21
Right, but, but, but don't give up.


00:54:16:21 - 00:54:19:03
I think about about inclination.
Yeah, you might.


00:54:19:03 - 00:54:21:24
Yeah. You might have broken me here,
but I am, I am.


00:54:21:24 - 00:54:26:23
I do think this,
this idea of of inclining toward


00:54:27:00 - 00:54:29:19
toward the platform
that it also makes sense to resist


00:54:29:19 - 00:54:33:13
against is useful
and I think it's and maybe


00:54:33:13 - 00:54:36:02
not so much for Amazon anymore like it
they might have reached


00:54:36:02 - 00:54:38:09
a point of no return
but like for something like Twitter.


00:54:38:09 - 00:54:41:04
Right. We might
we might continue to do this, right.


00:54:41:04 - 00:54:44:16
Is it increasingly makes sense
to to stand up and speak again


00:54:44:16 - 00:54:49:10
so we might think about it
sort of potential sustaining


00:54:49:12 - 00:54:52:11
function.


00:54:52:11 - 00:54:54:13
Yeah.


00:54:54:13 - 00:54:55:06
Point taken.


00:54:55:06 - 00:54:58:06
I know. Yeah.


00:54:58:10 - 00:55:01:09
My my response is going to ask,
I know you knew someone in the room


00:55:01:09 - 00:55:02:01
was going to ask.


00:55:02:01 - 00:55:05:06
I mean I yeah, it's like it's, it's year
three of getting the question.


00:55:05:06 - 00:55:09:03
My response is somehow not getting better,
which should maybe, maybe


00:55:09:03 - 00:55:11:21
tell me something, but


00:55:11:23 - 00:55:13:14
other than to, you know, to,


00:55:13:14 - 00:55:17:18
to try to make this argument for like


00:55:17:20 - 00:55:20:04
sort of like bio-political argument.


00:55:20:04 - 00:55:23:10
That's maybe just a thing,
a theory bro would do.


00:55:23:10 - 00:55:26:16
And I should I don't know thank you for it.


00:55:26:16 - 00:55:32:10
And. Yeah, yeah, understood.


00:55:32:12 - 00:55:33:05
Thank you, Ray.


00:55:33:05 - 00:55:37:19
And thank you, Lindsay,
for those those questions.


00:55:37:21 - 00:55:39:02
Oh Ray, go ahead.


00:55:39:02 - 00:55:39:12
Yeah.


00:55:39:12 - 00:55:43:08
So this is a you know,
this is what happens when you show up late you're gonna ask


00:55:43:10 - 00:55:47:06
complete uninformed questions that
have nothing to do with the conversation.


00:55:47:06 - 00:55:49:04
But since there's
some interesting people in the room.


00:55:49:04 - 00:55:50:08
So I'm going to start asking.


00:55:50:08 - 00:55:54:20
So part of like I'll tell you,
with a dark, cloudy, shady room I was at.


00:55:54:22 - 00:55:59:02
So it was a room with a climate scientist


00:55:59:04 - 00:56:02:15
and the room was full
climate scientists who were


00:56:02:17 - 00:56:04:22
concerned about


00:56:04:22 - 00:56:08:20
how do we get the marginalized
and dispossessed to


00:56:08:22 - 00:56:13:00
to buy in to climate science
or climate intervention.


00:56:13:01 - 00:56:18:13
The climate conversation,
when they're more concerned about eating,


00:56:18:15 - 00:56:23:01
they're more concerned
about sustaining their existence.


00:56:23:03 - 00:56:26:02
So the question is right.


00:56:26:02 - 00:56:32:07
So how can a platform or platforms


00:56:32:09 - 00:56:36:00
intervene in that conversation, intervene
in these kind of larger social


00:56:36:00 - 00:56:41:10
justice issues that people are talking
around marginalized communities,


00:56:41:12 - 00:56:43:23
you know,
as if they are this fixed object or thing.


00:56:43:23 - 00:56:47:17
So so I guess I'm asking you
the the kind of feminist power


00:56:47:19 - 00:56:50:17
aspect of what


00:56:50:17 - 00:56:55:21
how can platforms be mobilized for


00:56:55:23 - 00:56:57:21
breaking down the barriers


00:56:57:21 - 00:57:03:15
or reshaping institutional politics of


00:57:03:17 - 00:57:06:15
of inequality


00:57:06:15 - 00:57:07:03
Rianka?


00:57:07:03 - 00:57:09:03
I guess before you answer,
do you mind if I interject


00:57:09:03 - 00:57:11:09
because I find that sort of question
sort of very urgent.


00:57:11:09 - 00:57:15:03
Why, why, why you gather
your thoughts are just the sort of to me,


00:57:15:03 - 00:57:18:19
I think the sort of like
position now, the array of


00:57:18:21 - 00:57:21:18
I imagine these are sort of really sort
of prominent


00:57:21:18 - 00:57:24:15
climate scientists in this sort of dark,


00:57:24:15 - 00:57:27:22
I'm assuming, Zoom room of power


00:57:27:24 - 00:57:30:12
and sort of sort of thinking about sort


00:57:30:12 - 00:57:33:12
of the question sort of
how do we get,


00:57:33:14 - 00:57:37:12
at least as you framed it, which I'm sure
is a paraphrase of the sort of thinking


00:57:37:14 - 00:57:40:00
sort of going on
and sort of pinging around back and forth.


00:57:40:00 - 00:57:41:13
How do we get sort of,


00:57:41:13 - 00:57:44:24
as you said, marginalized and dispossessed
to think about sort of


00:57:45:01 - 00:57:50:10
the holistic future of of of climate


00:57:50:12 - 00:57:53:08
and the dangers of sort of dangerous


00:57:53:08 - 00:57:57:07
looming from climate change on all of us


00:57:57:09 - 00:58:00:23
when they just want to ask
where they just want to eat, as you said.


00:58:00:23 - 00:58:01:04
Right.


00:58:01:04 - 00:58:05:07
And so and like one that question is
sort of wild for me because


00:58:05:09 - 00:58:06:23
the sort of thinking


00:58:06:23 - 00:58:09:21
and this is where I think sort of gets
the Rianka's work really, really well,


00:58:09:21 - 00:58:15:13
is sort of that sort of this sort of
when you are sort of high on the platform


00:58:15:13 - 00:58:19:15
is I imagine these men and women
and people were, right.


00:58:19:15 - 00:58:20:08
You forget it.


00:58:20:08 - 00:58:24:07
You sort of the sort of conversations
become literally


00:58:24:09 - 00:58:27:16
so high minded
that you forget that sort of


00:58:27:18 - 00:58:32:04
there are people on the ground who are
just thinking about, as Rianka said.


00:58:32:04 - 00:58:33:18
So well, survival, right?


00:58:33:18 - 00:58:36:17
Like this question, like,
how do we get them to think about climate


00:58:36:17 - 00:58:41:04
when they just want to eat,
when eating is a biological necessity?


00:58:41:09 - 00:58:43:02
I think a sort of really,
really interesting


00:58:43:02 - 00:58:46:00
and really sort of speaks
the sorts of really interesting synergies 


00:58:46:00 - 00:58:49:13
and brings us a really interesting sort
of sort of nuggets in Rianka's work.


00:58:49:13 - 00:58:51:22
But I'll let you sort of take that.


00:58:51:22 - 00:58:53:21
Yeah, yeah,


00:58:53:23 - 00:58:54:09
yeah.


00:58:54:09 - 00:58:57:12
I mean, my immediate response is like feed


00:58:57:12 - 00:59:00:18
feed people first and then and then like


00:59:00:20 - 00:59:05:01
that seems to be the first sort of looking


00:59:05:03 - 00:59:08:23
Not in that room.


00:59:09:00 - 00:59:09:15
Yeah, Yeah.


00:59:09:15 - 00:59:12:02
That's like, like


00:59:12:02 - 00:59:14:14
I think that the, the,
the sort of point here


00:59:14:14 - 00:59:17:16
is that we're so limited
by our sort of investment


00:59:17:16 - 00:59:21:15
in making sure everyone has a voice
that we're using platforms to make sure


00:59:21:15 - 00:59:27:02
we include include marginalized
folks on the platform that we aren't


00:59:27:04 - 00:59:30:04
thinking about the material needs first


00:59:30:07 - 00:59:32:19
and like, why not, right?


00:59:32:19 - 00:59:35:08
Like how we might use platforms.


00:59:35:08 - 00:59:37:07
This is through the use of Google Docs
to see


00:59:37:07 - 00:59:41:13
who like who's hungry
and how do we feed them,


00:59:41:15 - 00:59:41:23
right?


00:59:41:23 - 00:59:48:13
Not like before we do this other
sort of like large conversations.


00:59:48:15 - 00:59:48:22
Yeah.


00:59:48:22 - 00:59:50:08
And I mean, I'm troubled by like


00:59:50:08 - 00:59:54:07
the appropriation
of the language of co-production right


00:59:54:09 - 00:59:57:11
co-production is in these environments
that as a than


00:59:57:12 - 00:59:59:23
just another extractive term.


00:59:59:23 - 01:00:03:22
Oh we can co-produce this


01:00:03:24 - 01:00:07:15
with the people which actually this means


01:00:07:17 - 01:00:12:04
but do we need to extract from them
to get them to silence to silence them


01:00:12:04 - 01:00:16:18
and move forward without their approval
Or consent


01:00:16:20 - 01:00:22:14
so yeah, I'm troubled with that


01:00:22:16 - 01:00:26:00
in almost a way that then the platform
actually gets used by power


01:00:26:00 - 01:00:32:01
in a different right way, right to say
like everyone had a chance to speak up.


01:00:32:03 - 01:00:34:20
Yeah, I think the problem with


01:00:34:20 - 01:00:37:11
that perception is that everyone has
the platform


01:00:37:11 - 01:00:41:10
is equal of all people


01:00:41:12 - 01:00:42:12
is deeply troubling.


01:00:42:12 - 01:00:42:19
Right?


01:00:42:19 - 01:00:47:16
It's it's not this egalitarian democratic


01:00:47:18 - 01:00:52:21
platform,


01:00:52:23 - 01:00:56:17
no question.


01:00:56:19 - 01:00:57:01
Yeah.


01:00:57:01 - 01:01:01:16
So, yeah, I guess first I'd like to
sort of open it up the conversation


01:01:01:18 - 01:01:04:19
and thank you sort of Ray and Lindsay
and Rianka for us,


01:01:04:23 - 01:01:09:22
but I'd like to open the conversation
if anybody else wants to sort of interject


01:01:09:24 - 01:01:13:16
at all and sort of shift the perspective.


01:01:13:16 - 01:01:15:04
We we'd love to hear from you.


01:01:15:04 - 01:01:18:10
So is there anyone else would anyone else like


01:01:18:10 - 01:01:28:04
to say anything?


01:01:28:06 - 01:01:29:15
Okay.


01:01:29:15 - 01:01:31:02
I've left you speechless.


01:01:31:02 - 01:01:32:19
Yeah, yeah, yeah.


01:01:32:19 - 01:01:34:08
No, no.


01:01:34:08 - 01:01:36:16
Yeah, I think so.


01:01:36:16 - 01:01:42:08
I guess I have a follow up
and I think I really sort of


01:01:42:10 - 01:01:43:11
sort of thought of this.


01:01:43:11 - 01:01:47:01
It's sort of really paint for me
with Lindsay's question about sort


01:01:47:01 - 01:01:51:04
of the sort of obvious and sort of


01:01:51:06 - 01:01:53:13
anti-Blackness of of Amazon


01:01:53:13 - 01:01:57:13
and other sort of large scale sort of


01:01:57:15 - 01:01:59:11
capitalist sort of mega-corporations.


01:01:59:11 - 01:02:00:11
Right.


01:02:00:11 - 01:02:04:13
I think we're all like we're past
Thanksgiving


01:02:04:15 - 01:02:06:19
and sort of into this.


01:02:06:19 - 01:02:10:20
We're coming into the thick of the
how the sort of Christmas holiday season


01:02:10:20 - 01:02:14:15
where sort of gift giving is
sort of becomes the sort of thing


01:02:14:15 - 01:02:16:05
that we're all sort of thinking
about doing.


01:02:16:05 - 01:02:18:21
Right. And for me, I think


01:02:18:21 - 01:02:21:20
then even the naming
of the Amazon Wishlist sort of speaks


01:02:21:20 - 01:02:26:02
to a sort of


01:02:26:04 - 01:02:29:05
the sort of, I think, affectual, powerful,


01:02:29:05 - 01:02:33:20
magical camp of capitalism
that it sort of grants wishes.


01:02:33:20 - 01:02:35:11
But those that that magic


01:02:35:11 - 01:02:38:10
as only sort of so sort of succinctly
and powerfully stated.


01:02:38:10 - 01:02:38:19
Right.


01:02:38:19 - 01:02:42:05
And Rianka as well is sort of


01:02:42:07 - 01:02:45:15
based on the sort of labor


01:02:45:15 - 01:02:48:20
and bodies,
the degradation of black and brown folks.


01:02:48:20 - 01:02:49:07
Right.


01:02:49:07 - 01:02:53:13
The Amazon wishlist happens
because they're sort of Amazon


01:02:53:15 - 01:02:57:07
warehouses in wider communities
all over the country.


01:02:57:07 - 01:02:57:12
Right?


01:02:57:12 - 01:02:59:09
And we can all get our two day shipping,


01:02:59:09 - 01:03:02:24
as I know, because my wife reminded me
that we need to pay our Amazon Prime


01:03:03:01 - 01:03:07:12
bill today
so we can keep our two day shipping.


01:03:07:14 - 01:03:08:10
But yes, and


01:03:08:10 - 01:03:11:10
I'm thinking about that same question,


01:03:11:13 - 01:03:15:12
I think from a different perspective and
sort of thinking about sort of sneakers.


01:03:15:12 - 01:03:15:21
Right.


01:03:15:21 - 01:03:19:14
And how sort of like the magic of things
like Nike Air, right.


01:03:19:16 - 01:03:21:23
That the Jordan Jumpman Right.


01:03:21:23 - 01:03:23:07
Sort of


01:03:23:07 - 01:03:26:07
plays
through that sort of that sort of same


01:03:26:11 - 01:03:29:00
sort of


01:03:29:00 - 01:03:30:11
symphony or collision


01:03:30:11 - 01:03:35:18
of this idea of this capitalist
magic of consumption that is sort of


01:03:35:20 - 01:03:38:20
built on the black, on the back of


01:03:38:21 - 01:03:41:21
or built in and through sort of


01:03:41:21 - 01:03:42:18
[inaudible, lagging]


01:03:42:18 - 01:03:45:09
Highly sustained platforms, right.


01:03:45:09 - 01:03:49:22
But sort of is on the backs
of sort of black and brown bodies


01:03:49:22 - 01:03:54:07
and I'm curious sort of Rianka to and this
this could be maybe I think


01:03:54:09 - 01:03:57:22
more of a sort of pie in the sky
question or whatever.


01:03:57:24 - 01:04:02:07
And I don't mean it as sort of


01:04:02:09 - 01:04:04:23
I don't
mean it as that, but I'm curious sort of


01:04:04:23 - 01:04:09:23
if you I guess and this is
I think maybe to sort of answer


01:04:09:23 - 01:04:13:21
what even asked, but like, is there a way
out of that loop in your mind?


01:04:13:23 - 01:04:14:07
Right.


01:04:14:07 - 01:04:20:02
Is there sort of like and I mean
sort of way out nonsense of like sort of


01:04:20:04 - 01:04:21:09
like will capitalism?


01:04:21:09 - 01:04:23:24
Will capitalism stop capitalisming? Right.


01:04:23:24 - 01:04:27:19
But Like for everyday folks, Is there
is there a way


01:04:27:21 - 01:04:32:18
to sort of be


01:04:32:20 - 01:04:35:01
just better


01:04:35:01 - 01:04:36:21
When thinking about platforms


01:04:36:21 - 01:04:40:11
And I might say like everyday folk,
like me, like,


01:04:40:13 - 01:04:43:14
like the people in this room like to
just to be better when thinking about


01:04:43:14 - 01:04:46:21
platforms, thinking about our engagement
with platforms,


01:04:46:23 - 01:04:49:22
thinking about


01:04:49:22 - 01:04:50:12
the people.


01:04:50:12 - 01:04:54:24
We sort of try to share our platforms
with and stuff like that.


01:04:54:24 - 01:04:57:20
Yeah. So I mean, yeah,
so I guess that's my question.


01:04:57:20 - 01:05:00:16
where really it's sort of meandering
thought though.


01:05:00:16 - 01:05:01:02
Yeah.


01:05:01:02 - 01:05:05:02
And it's tough like to sort of
to sort of return,


01:05:05:04 - 01:05:08:19
return to, to, to even to Lindsay's point.


01:05:08:21 - 01:05:12:03
like I think about,


01:05:12:05 - 01:05:14:10
I think about I had I had


01:05:14:10 - 01:05:18:20
during, when I was doing interviews
for this project I talked to,


01:05:18:22 - 01:05:20:16
I talked to an activist who said that


01:05:20:16 - 01:05:24:17
the way that they think about platforms
and care is,


01:05:24:19 - 01:05:28:04
is that when they run out of money
at the end of the month,


01:05:28:06 - 01:05:32:16
their friends send them
meals using using Uber Eats, right?


01:05:32:18 - 01:05:35:15
And that is like how they how they make it
to the end of the month


01:05:35:15 - 01:05:40:10
until they might right,
make get money and and so


01:05:40:10 - 01:05:43:10
and so trying to think about like me


01:05:43:13 - 01:05:48:08
ordering Uber Eats after doing this
talk right this university talk


01:05:48:12 - 01:05:51:18
and that person right getting Uber


01:05:51:18 - 01:05:54:20
Eats sent to them so that they can survive
to the end of the month is different.


01:05:54:20 - 01:05:56:07
And how do we right?


01:05:56:07 - 01:06:00:00
How do we like account for that
sort of difference on the platform?


01:06:00:02 - 01:06:00:08
Right.


01:06:00:08 - 01:06:05:02
This is a different way of thinking about
platforms' indifference then


01:06:05:04 - 01:06:05:22
than I think


01:06:05:22 - 01:06:10:16
a lot of like feminist media studies
scholars do think about it, right?


01:06:10:18 - 01:06:11:19
It's really hard.


01:06:11:19 - 01:06:15:11
And you can see like the problem
you sort of immediately butt up against,


01:06:15:11 - 01:06:20:05
which is right, which is what what
like Lindsay pointed out so well, right.


01:06:20:05 - 01:06:24:00
And like, stop me in my tracks
because every time it does 


01:06:24:02 - 01:06:26:13
because of course, there's
this other massive problem, right?


01:06:26:13 - 01:06:28:04
It's like


01:06:28:04 - 01:06:30:15
on the backs
of other black and brown folks.


01:06:30:15 - 01:06:30:21
Right.


01:06:30:21 - 01:06:34:05
But we also know that care is is unequal,
right?


01:06:34:05 - 01:06:37:06
We know like this is something Michelle
Murphy talked like a lots of people


01:06:37:06 - 01:06:41:04
do this really well. So


01:06:41:06 - 01:06:42:20
right this is that this is a way


01:06:42:20 - 01:06:46:03
I want to think about it though right
like difference on the platform is also


01:06:46:03 - 01:06:49:06
is also
that right is my the way I even approach


01:06:49:06 - 01:06:55:09
or am oriented to to something
like platform care is totally different


01:06:55:11 - 01:06:56:07
and how do we


01:06:56:07 - 01:07:00:21
because I do think we need to account
for those moments somehow


01:07:00:23 - 01:07:03:02
but but how to do it


01:07:03:02 - 01:07:06:21
is is really complicated and difficult.


01:07:06:21 - 01:07:11:06
I think.


01:07:11:08 - 01:07:13:18
Thank you so much for that.


01:07:13:18 - 01:07:15:10
I think Lindsay did you I saw you.


01:07:15:10 - 01:07:17:03
Were you raising your hand?


01:07:17:03 - 01:07:18:03
Yeah. Please.


01:07:18:03 - 01:07:19:12
I was just thinking about something.


01:07:19:12 - 01:07:22:12
I'd be curious
what cause I'm thinking about that knot right.


01:07:22:13 - 01:07:23:04
I'm wondering if, Rianka


01:07:23:04 - 01:07:26:22
like, one of the challenges
there is also the way that, like, it's


01:07:26:22 - 01:07:29:22
a type of politics with the wish list
that's also very individualized,


01:07:30:00 - 01:07:30:24
which doesn't meet the right.


01:07:30:24 - 01:07:32:18
And you talked about this
a little bit to another context, right?


01:07:32:18 - 01:07:36:12
It doesn't mean it's
not important or valuable or worthy of us


01:07:36:12 - 01:07:39:17
thinking about both its limits
and what it and the material problems


01:07:39:17 - 01:07:41:10
that help solve in the present.


01:07:41:10 - 01:07:44:04
But I'm wondering if that's part
of the problem of platforms, too.


01:07:44:04 - 01:07:47:05
Like when you think about like viral going
viral, like


01:07:47:05 - 01:07:50:05
that's very much about one particular
image or video or idea.


01:07:50:05 - 01:07:53:05
Like it's really hard to for me to imagine


01:07:53:07 - 01:07:56:18
coalition based politics
happening on platforms because of the way


01:07:56:18 - 01:07:57:19
that they're structured. Right?


01:07:57:19 - 01:08:01:01
And also when I think about feminism,
I think about coalition building,


01:08:01:01 - 01:08:03:23
I think about like thinking
about interlocking oppressions, right?


01:08:03:23 - 01:08:04:14
So maybe, I don't know,


01:08:04:14 - 01:08:07:23
maybe that's the piece right
there, a way to talk about here's, here's


01:08:07:23 - 01:08:10:08
why it's solving
this particular set of problems.


01:08:10:08 - 01:08:13:10
But here are all the ways it's still
reproducing these other sets of problems.


01:08:13:10 - 01:08:16:21
Yes. And I don't know
if that's one way of thinking about it.


01:08:16:23 - 01:08:17:17
Yeah. Yeah.


01:08:17:17 - 01:08:20:24
Like, once again, it comes back
to that sort of original point that


01:08:21:01 - 01:08:24:19
that the platforms
kind of reduce us to to the individual.


01:08:24:20 - 01:08:25:03
Right.


01:08:25:03 - 01:08:28:03
They like foreclose the commons
in some way or,


01:08:28:07 - 01:08:32:07
or the under commons in some way and yeah.


01:08:32:07 - 01:08:36:10
And so even in these examples of platform
care it's still there's still like


01:08:36:12 - 01:08:42:04
this cut off. Well that here we go


01:08:42:06 - 01:08:47:08
that's really yeah


01:08:47:10 - 01:08:50:09
great well I got something out of this.


01:08:50:09 - 01:08:50:18
Yeah.


01:08:50:18 - 01:08:55:00
Now thank you so much again
Lindsay, for that question


01:08:55:02 - 01:08:56:14
and thank you Rianka, for your answer.


01:08:56:14 - 01:08:58:11
So it's 5:16 now.


01:08:58:11 - 01:09:01:22
I'll ask I guess we're supposed to 5:30.


01:09:01:24 - 01:09:04:11
I sort of open the floor one more time.


01:09:04:11 - 01:09:09:17
If people
if if someone has another question.


01:09:09:19 - 01:09:13:23
But I guess if not
we'll I go ahead and sort of wrap up.


01:09:13:23 - 01:09:15:05
Does anybody have another question again,


01:09:15:05 - 01:09:20:08
that's not addressed for anybody
if they're if you're on the fence, But


01:09:20:10 - 01:09:32:02
does anybody have another question
they'd like to ask,


01:09:32:04 - 01:09:33:14
I think.


01:09:33:14 - 01:09:37:12
Yeah, I think I think that's
I think that's a signal.


01:09:37:14 - 01:09:41:11
So first,
I want to thank sort of Rianka Singh again


01:09:41:13 - 01:09:44:06
for giving this amazing sort of thought


01:09:44:06 - 01:09:47:06
provoking thought
and really sort of as personally sort of


01:09:47:11 - 01:09:51:10
helped me and my own work
and thinking about platforms.


01:09:51:12 - 01:09:55:01
And then I want to thank make sure
I thank Annette Blough,


01:09:55:02 - 01:09:57:08
who is our captioner today,


01:09:57:10 - 01:09:58:17
and Andrea


01:09:58:17 - 01:10:02:16
Furrer, who is the program coordinator
for the HaT Lab


01:10:02:18 - 01:10:06:15
for all the sort of behind the scenes work
that they have done


01:10:06:15 - 01:10:10:00
to make this event possible
and make this event run smoothly.


01:10:10:02 - 01:10:14:01
And then lastly, I'd like to thank each
and every one of you for coming.


01:10:14:01 - 01:10:17:13
Hang out with us as


01:10:17:15 - 01:10:21:14
we talk about some cool and interesting things.


01:10:21:16 - 01:10:25:08
With that being said, this will be
the last HaT Lab talk for 2022.


01:10:25:14 - 01:10:26:10
But stay tuned.


01:10:26:10 - 01:10:29:12
We'll have some more talks in 2023.


01:10:29:12 - 01:10:30:17
And I hope. And I hope.