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This chapter examines the problem of differential access to technology worldwide, interrogating the meaningfulness of current efforts to understand the issue. It makes the argument that current international frameworks, which envision the digital divide primarily as an issue of underdevelopment, ignore important security-related factors that shape gendered access to technology. It further highlights how increased engagement with technology – absent an understanding of the diverse lived experiences of women – produces new forms of insecurity. These themes are further illustrated with case studies from South Asia, which demonstrate both gendered insecurities and the emerging spaces for discourse on digital rights.
The reception of disability-related social rights (disabled adult benefit, disability compensation benefit) is marked by a paradox: although they are factors of autonomy, they are perceived negatively. This chapter explains this paradox by the link between rights consciousness and the administrative relationship. The effectiveness of benefits is diminished by the ways in which they are implemented and by users’ perceptions of this process. The experience – and expectation – of heavy supervision, conflicts over needs assessments and disability levels, interruptions in payments, and unmanageable delays create a lack of trust and predictability, as well as a perception of disrespect. Social rights then fail in their capacity to reduce uncertainty and to act on people’s perception of their social status by making them subjects of rights. Whether the eventual outcome is non-take-up, or distrustful or reluctant take-up, rights consciousness is therefore tenuous and unstable.
This chapter introduces the technology of big data while also providing a methodological framework for the book rooted in critical feminist security studies. It begins by offering various definitions of big data and discussing the normative and ethical issues framing discussions about the concept. Discussing the coinciding emergence of ‘big data’ norms and an emphasis on gender-disaggregated data as advanced through policy mandates, it moves into a discussion of how the current policy environment has resulted in a patchwork of data collection efforts that vary in terms of inclusivity, validity, and reliability. This chapter draws on a comparative analysis of quantitative measures and indices related to gender as compiled by the World Bank, UN institutions, think tanks, and academic projects.
Exploring the digital frontiers of feminist international relations, this book investigates how gender can be mainstreamed into discourse about technology and security.
With a focus on big data, communications technology, social media, cryptocurrency, and decentralized finance, the book explores the ways in which technology presents sites for gender-based violence. Crucially, it examines potential avenues for resistance at these sites, especially regarding the actions of major tech companies, surveillance by repressive governments, and attempts to use the Global South as a laboratory for new interventions.
The book draws valuable insights which will be essential to researchers in International Relations, Security Studies, and Feminist Security Studies.
This final chapter summarizes the findings of the book and discusses potential implications for policy. Ultimately, it argues that technology in its current form acts as an amplifier for hierarchies of gender, race, class, dis/ability, and sexuality – a predictable outgrowth of an industry that brings an androcentric vision to development. This final chapter also speculates on the future research agenda in this area, reflecting on how feminist security studies can engage in debates about technology and politics in a way that reflects feminist commitments. It reflects on the need to broaden intersectional dialogue while also reaching out to critical scholarship on surveillance and labour. This discussion concludes with a call to action for feminist and critical researchers as well as international relations scholars, practitioners, and activists interested in change.
This concluding chapter sums up the main conclusions of the book that justify speaking of ‘fragile rights’: often imprecise from the moment they are legally enshrined, disability-related rights suffer from major shortcomings in terms of effectiveness in all the studied areas (education, employment, social policy, accessibility). Faced with these imperfectly realized rights, many individuals protest (at least in the interview situation) and take action, negotiate, tinker, adapt, to make their rights more concrete, and in the same movement, to assert themselves as subjects of rights. This everyday politics takes place at a distance from the collectives involved in the politicization of disability, whether they be associations or public officials, towards whom several people make a demand for descriptive representation.
This chapter explores how new financial technologies including blockchain, cryptocurrency, and decentralized finance present distinctly gendered challenges. Examining a range of cases, it calls for more attention to the deployment of decentralized finance in the Global South, noting that such interventions often fail to live up to their promise while circumventing best practices associated with ethics and gender mainstreaming.
Exploring the digital frontiers of feminist international relations, this book investigates how gender can be mainstreamed into discourse about technology and security.
With a focus on big data, communications technology, social media, cryptocurrency and decentralized finance, the book explores the ways in which technology presents sites for gender-based violence. Crucially, it examines potential avenues for resistance at these sites, especially regarding the actions of major tech companies, surveillance by repressive governments and attempts to use the Global South as a laboratory for new interventions.
The book draws valuable insights which will be essential to researchers in International Relations, Security Studies and Feminist Security Studies.
This chapter explores how policy initiatives related to the protection of women and girls find relevance in the digital space, while also problematizing how overly simplistic notions of gender contribute to a failure to stem the rising tide of online gender-based extremism. With a particular focus on extremist communities including highly organized groups like the Islamic State and more diffuse (but still defined) communities like male supremacist movements, this chapter explores the diverse ways that extremists commit online violence against women, engage in homophobic and transphobic violence, and deploy discourse using gender as a recruitment tool.
The French version of this book was the winner of the 2022 Grand Prix de la Protection Sociale.
Over the years, many disability-related rights have been legally recognized, but how has this changed the everyday lives of people with disabilities?
Drawing on biographical interviews collected from individuals with either mobility or visual impairments in France, this book analyzes the reception of disability policies in the fields of education, employment, social rights and accessibility. It examines to what extent these policies contribute to the realization of the associated rights among disabled people. The book demonstrates that the rights associated with disability suffer from major implementation flaws, while shedding light on the very active role of disabled citizens in the realization of their rights.
