Introduction
The Situated Critical Race + Media Committee (SCR+M), formerly known as the Critical Race and Ethnic Studies Committee (CRES) of FemTechNet, is composed of a handful of graduate students, post-docs, librarians, and alt-ac professionals. We keenly feel the pressures of women of color in academia. We understand that for junior scholars the labor of developing one’s pedagogy is extensive. For women of color junior teacher-scholars, experimentation in the classroom can be a risk, even though their institutions encourage and exhort them to practice digital pedagogy or to teach online. Because these same institutions often offer little support to develop these skills we are leveraging the collective intelligence and experience of the FemTechNet network to cohere a practical resource for those who endeavor to share and support others, and those who seek to learn and improve their own skills.
Acknowledging the challenges of teaching these sensitive and contentious topics in a time of economic retrenchment and increasing institutional precarity for departments of ethnic, gender, and humanisitic studies, this workbook is an ongoing project to build resources for faculty members who are often overburdened at their home institutions, but are willing to take on the difficult task of teaching about gender and racial inequity in our information culture.
This workbook also considers the ways that FemTechNet can interface with other allies and partners in ethnic studies and communities of color. In doing so, we consider the work of FemTechNet as thinking, writing, theorizing, and building partnerships through the intersectionalities of feminist studies and ethnic studies. Considering transnationality through a race-based and ethnic studies lens highlights the importance of community-based learning and service in feminist digital pedagogies.
We would like to highlight (and continue to build) the diversity of FemTechNet through curating and highlighting the existing transnational and multi-ethnic projects already on the site and point towards gaps and possibilities. Considering technology through a race-based and ethnic studies lens highlights the importance of community-based learning and service in feminist digital pedagogies. This is a collaborative, living document and will grow as more instructors teach teach at the intersections of gender, race, and technology. It is curated by multiple contributors who have volunteered their time and skill towards this endeavor. Submission are ongoing and we encourage you to share your own Femtechnet content, syllabi, videos, references, and pedagogical resources.
Please submit materials to: our Google Doc or femtechnetcres@gmail.com
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.