The journal Gender a výzkum / Gender and Research announces a call for papers for the special issue Convergences: Communication, work and gender.
With this issue, we aim to bring to the forefront the increasing convergence between labour and communication (Brophy, 2011), which is facilitated by interactive technologies, and we pay attention to how this process is related to gender and other identity categories. We use “interactive technologies” as a synonym for digital or computer-based technologies, and we privilege it since it captures a certain uniqueness which emerges when we look at the history of communication technologies. Communication technologies can be defined as tools, organisational structures, and social values that assist individuals in collecting, processing, and exchanging information (Rogers, 1986); the point of differentiation that interactive technologies convey is that they stimulate and diversify the channels of interpersonal communication, which in the past was relegated to face-to-face interaction. Interactive technologies intensify communication, creating disruptions in paid and unpaid work (Morini, 2007).
Gender continues to be a core organising principle in our society, and we acknowledge that it is influenced by (and that often becomes less prominent in relation to other identity categories such as) social class, age, race or ethnicity, educational background, occupational status, job type, bodily and cognitive abilities, non-normative sexualities, or nationality.Thus, we ask what are the gendered and identity-based outcomes of the labour and communication confluence that we are witnessing due to the widespread of interactive technologies? We seek to answer the question by integrating papers that illustrate various facets of this tendency. This is undertaken in a post-pandemic context, in which, by comparison to the past, there is an increased social acceptability of remote and hybrid work. Also, technology is framed as a tool of reorganisation of work in terms of efficiency, productivity and employees’ autonomy. There are benefits stemming from it, as there are challenges, such as mental overload and fatigue, that arise also because a higher degree of planned communication mediated by interactive technologies is necessary to supplant the lack of spontaneous interactions via physical proximity. With this issue we aim to contribute to the larger discussion on the rising importance of “mental work” (Daminger, 2019; Jensen & Prieur, 2016) in our society, and we will do so by gathering evidence regarding the key-role of communication in this process.
We welcome contributions on the following topics:
The deadline for abstracts submission is February 1, 2024, and the deadline for the full papers is 1 May, 2024. The issue is scheduled for publication in January 2025.
Please submit an extended abstract (500-600 words) to:
After the extended abstracts are reviewed by the editors, the full articles are expected to be ready by May 1, 2024. Articles should have between 6,000 and 10,000 words, including footnotes and references. The language for this thematic issue is English, and the submission guidelines can be found on the journal’s website: https://www.genderonline.cz/artkey/inf-990000-1200_Submission-Guidelines.php
About the journal: Gender a výzkum / Gender and Research is a peer-reviewed transdisciplinary journal of gender studies and feminist theory. The territorial focus is on Central and Eastern Europe as well as other global macro-regions. The journal is included in SCOPUS, ERIH PLUS, CEJSH, DOAJ and other databases.
References
Brophy, E. (2011). Language put to work: Cognitive capitalism, call center labor, and worker inquiry. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 35(4), 410-416.
Daminger, A. (2019). The cognitive dimension of household labor. American Sociological Review, 84(4), 609-633.
Jensen, S. Q., & Prieur, A. (2016). The commodification of the personal: Labour market demands in the era of neoliberal postindustrialization. Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory, 17(1), 94-108.
Morini, C. (2007).The feminization of labour in cognitive capitalism. Feminist Review, 87(1), 40-59.
Rogers, E. M. (1986). Communication technology. The Free Press
