Berkman Lunch: Beyond online/offline: Information access, public spaces, & the boundaries of visibility for queer youth in the rural US
Today’s Berkman Lunch presentation Beyond online/offline: Information access, public spaces, & the boundaries of visibility for queer youth in the rural US ties in nicely with an interest I explored in library school about access to material about homosexuality in libraries. Mary L. Gray, professor of communication and culture at Indiana University, draws “on her experiences working for 2 years in rural parts of Kentucky and in small towns along its borders[.] Mary will map out how lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and questioning (LGBTQ) youth and their allies make use of social media and local resources to combat the marginalization they contend with in their own communities as well as the erasure they face in popular representations of gay and lesbian life and the agendas of national gay and lesbian advocacy groups.”
Starting around 6:30 pm on the 10th floor of One Memorial Drive at the Microsoft Research portion of that building, Mary will be giving another presentation danah boyd is hosting (RSVP required).
What follows are my live notes from Mary’s lunch presentation. Berkman webcasts these talks live and puts the audio online for later consumption.
Policy making often attempts to contain adolescent sexuality. Queer studies could be central to policy work. Rural youth rely “on the blurring of offline/online performance of social visibility to combat:
-’digital inequalities’ that structure their access to media and information
-broader politics of visibility that frame [the youth as being] out-of-place”
(Harvard kicked me off their network and made me re-register for access, so I missed a bit of notetaking.)
Mary worked with a group of about 34 youths in Appalachia for her research.
Linchpins for visibility: critical mass of people, capital (donor/support base for political action), and accessible “safe” places. None of these items exist in rural communities. Issues are not just about conservatism, but lacking these items. With unemployment around 40% in Appalachia, the area is very impoverished. People do not have financial resources to pay membership dues for organizations, financially support various kinds of work, etc. Small communities are often close knit and have people who think they know everyone else. People often have known each other all their lives. LGBTQ youth who do not leave must often rely on “allies and legibility as ‘locals.’” Some people see LGBTQ people as outsiders or others. People might lose some of their local identity or clout. LGBTQ folks also rely on pooled resources, which might be limited. LGBTQ youth occupy shared public spaces, sometimes temporarily because the spaces are used by others for other purposes (boundary publics). Mary said she’d talk more tomorrow (Wednesday, 2/10) about how these youth drag at a local Wal-Mart occasionally.
Queer identity is crafted locally, but identity formation can be a fundamentally social process. Boundary publics: “iterative, ephemeral experiences on the outskirts and in the center(s); blur offline/online performances of queer visibility; responses to ‘digital inequality.’”
Some of these youth use the Web to document their presence, come out online when they might not be able to feel like they can come out in their real-world, in-person communities.
What is digital inequality and how does it impact access to information for these youth? “not just … differences in access, but also to inequality among persons with formal access to the Internet” (DiMaggio and Hargattai, 2001: 2)
5 dimensions of inequality:
1. Equipment access
2. Autonomy of use
3. Skill
4. Social support
5. Purposes for which the technology is employed
1. Equipment access: many people in the region have no access to broadband or a home computer; dial-up is still used, but also not completely common.
2. Autonomy: Many home computers are shared computers. School computers are heavily monitored and filtered. Rather than policymakers spending time supporting the creation of good content for youth about sexuality, they’re focusing on blocking access to that content completely.
3. Skill: Basic literacy is an issue as well as the ability to use a computer, its software, and the Internet
4. Social support: “limited and varied by ‘power proximities’” A county librarian did what she could to support youth access to these materials. One librarian repositioned computer monitors so no one else could easily see what was on some computer screens. The youth describe that decision as a pivotal (no pun intended) moment in their decision to use that library and its computers. They felt like that action supported their learning efforts.
5. Technology’s purpose is not for queer exploration.
Queercore celebrated at a Methodist Church Skate Park, which gave youth a great cover. It was fairly easy for the youth to convince their parents to drop them off at a church for an evening activity.
Mary showed a screenshot of the website of a 19-year-old transman named AJ, who chronicled his transition online during the early 2000s. He shared photographs of how testosterone therapy changed his body and his surgery pictures. Audio files allow visitors to hear vocal changes. This Tripod site was not easy to find in a world without Google. A guestbook includes positive posts from his family—even his mom.
“Youth use new medial not to escape but create local belonging.” Many wanted to know how to be LBGTQ and happy in their own communities. Boundary publics mix digital media, inequality, and politics of visibility. How does all of that mix with the bigger picture of being LGBTQ in a small community with few other open LGBTQ folks? These youth “offer policy analysts a site for considering the value of studying the nexus of … ” digital media, minority groups, and access to information.
Mary’s book is Youth, Media, and Queer Visibility in Rural America.
Q&As:
Q: Why Wal-Mart?
A: All the drag supplies are there: clothes, make-up, etc. Wal-Mart is 24-hour. The counties are dry, so no bars or other places to go. Antagonists are not in the space then. Some youth had friends who worked there and felt protected or safe. A lot of teens hang out at Wal-Mart because there’s no other place to go.
Q: ?
A: We’ve overestimated the violence and lack of support for LGBTQ people in rural spaces, but the youth recognize that what they’re doing is risky. Lots of class stratification among the youth. Middle class youth were in much better positions. Lower class youth often had more violence and anger directed at them. Most youth would say high school is a rough place regardless of their stratus. To outsiders, the view looks worse than it is because we don’t see a lot of the safe spaces locals know.
Q: How does this compare to what youth in cities experience, especially those of lower incomes?
A: Mary knows a few people who left smaller communities for big cities because of LGBTQ issues and not feeling like they could fully express their sexuality. She’s found a lot of these issues map onto bigger communities and youth in big cities. Youth have learned to prioritize which identity will give them the best … results? opportunities? … LGBTQ youth of color might choose an identity from their heritage or religion or geography rather than their sexual identity if the benefits of being a particular heritage or religion or of a palce is greater than being LGBTQ.
Q: Is there an online boundary or community for these folks?
A: Mary’s approach is one that there is no difference between online and offline experiences these days.
Q:?
A:Working online gives people a way to produce their narratives and establish some kind of belonging.
Q: Production is different in online versus offline. The fellow posting surgery pictures and audio on his site is probably not doing that from a public computer (like a library machine). Say more about production efforts and such, please.
A: Production is often collaborative and centralized for some sites. One person shepherds the group’s online efforts. (“Send your photos to Jim and he’ll put them online.”) AJ is an exception to most folks in this area.
danah: There’s a shift now to better control who’s putting what online. Urban kids know about proxies and how to circumvent certain controls, but rural kids often don’t.
February 11th, 2010 at 2:43 am
[...] j liveblogged the talk [...]