Gendering digital infrastructure and peripheral urban formation in Tunis, Tunisia
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- A few years after Tunisia's revolutionary uprising of 2010-2011, the internet materialized as a household necessity in low-income areas of Tunis, the capital. This dissertation documents the proliferation of digital infrastructure in the most populous, low-income area of Tunis by foregrounding its social character and role in the growth of peripheral urban landscapes. The dissertation thus departs from ethnographic studies of experts who build the web and software architectures that structure computing and internet functionality. The approach to "digital infrastructure" advanced here stems from two guiding motifs operating as methodological principles: firstly, that it has to be discovered what "digital infrastructure" comprises in a given place; secondly, that researchers should investigate the techne (artful technique) of how people use the internet in order to undermine the internet's cerebral association with air and clouds as opposed to the making and doing that personal computers were designed for and for which they are actually used. Through a comparison of the inner and outer periphery of this area in terms of internet use and urban experience, the study demonstrates that relationships are central to the status of emplaced digital infrastructure, where online chatting represents the bulk of how residents used the internet. Relationships were also central to lending and borrowing that underpins the slow growth of neighborhoods over time. A focus on the relationships of a group of women participants serves to counter the area's overdetermined association with law-breaking young men. At the same time, the study highlights that gender relations change as women move through urban landscapes, where their experiences of crime and masculinity serve as indices of urban growth and development. Based on 15 months of ethnographic research and a quantitative survey in Hay Ettadhamon (Solidarity District), the study further shows how women employ techne online and in their relationships in ways that serve the place-making of neighborhoods.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2020; ©2020 |
| Publication date | 2020; 2020 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Said, Karem Irene |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Ebron, Paulla A, 1953- |
| Thesis advisor | Ebron, Paulla A, 1953- |
| Thesis advisor | Ghannam, Farha, 1963- |
| Thesis advisor | Inoue, Miyako, 1962- |
| Thesis advisor | Tambar, Kabir |
| Degree committee member | Ghannam, Farha, 1963- |
| Degree committee member | Inoue, Miyako, 1962- |
| Degree committee member | Tambar, Kabir |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Anthropology. |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Karem Said. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Anthropology. |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2020. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2020 by Karem Irene Said
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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