This book opens up new lines of inquiry using various intersectional frameworks. Whether we use Black feminism as a lens that allows us to ask questions and conduct new investigations, or other lenses such as political economy, cultural studies, and critical theory, what we need are theoretical and methodological approaches that allow us to intervene on the organization of social relations that are embedded in our digital technologies and that can foster a clearer understanding of how power relations are organized through technologies.
The goal of this book is to provide a text that can inspire thinking about new methods, new theories, and, ultimately, new interventions in the study of the many global Internet s. After meeting at a National Council of Black Studies conference in Indianapolis in , we discussed broadening the intersectional approach to thinking about the Internet from the social sciences, including library and information science, education, sociology, and psychology.
With the wide-ranging number of scholars from various fields conducting research in these areas, we felt the book would be more innovative and interdisciplinary, with representation from multiple methods and approaches. Along the way, Safiya Noble took primary responsibility for shepherding the collection through, with support and editorial contributions from Brendesha Tynes.
What has come forth in this volume is a way of thinking critically about the Internet as a system that reflects , and a site that structures, power and values. There is now quite a robust literature on intersectionality, although not a lot in the broadest scope of Internet studies. Taking a long view of the origins of intersectionality, scholars point to the speeches of Maria Stewart and Sojourner Truth , among others, who conceptualized power and oppression across multiple axes.
Scholars such as Angela Y. Davis have long argued for the elimination of oppression of all kinds and a more complex analysis of power relations that cannot be understood studying individual variables such as race, class, gender, or sexuality Davis, We now see intersectional frameworks in a wide range of theoretical traditions and fields, including queer theory, third wave feminism, and cultural studies.
