The objectives of the Gender and Citizenship in the Information Society: An Asia-wide Research Program are: to understand how emerging techno-social paradigms, shaped by new information and communication technologies (ICTs), recast the citizenship of marginalised women; to examine the challenges to and opportunities for women’s citizenship as they are shaped by new ICTs in relation to specific social and institutional ecologies; to propose ways forward for practice and policy in relation to information and communication domains that place women’s citizenship at the centre; and to build a network of researchers, scholars and policy makers on information society and gender issues in Asia.
There are key research questions that are sought to be considered under the submitted proposals. All submitted proposals are expected to cover any one or more of these areas:
- Citizenship practices leveraging new technologies and the renegotiation of women’s formal citizenship in local contexts
- New technologies, institutional transparency and women’s participation in local governance
- The trans-local nature of the public sphere and changing meanings of citizenship for marginalised women
- Gender transformation through digital media and emerging ‘local publics’
- Women’s citizenship, economic and cultural globalisation, social movements and new technologies
- National policy frameworks and institutional mechanisms around ICTs, with respect to women’s citizenship
- Gender, hegemonic masculinities and ‘openness’/’publicness’ of online spaces
- Interconnections between technology governance regimes (including Internet governance), ‘open technology paradigms’ and emancipatory feminist frameworks