HTNM Revisited: Lisa Parks
An eye-opening lecture last Thursday evening, November 7th, from Professor Lisa Parks marked the third installment of our 2013-2014 History & Theory of New Media (HTNM) lecture series. Visiting us from the Department of Film and Media Studies at UC-Santa Barbara, Professor Parks presented preliminary findings from her current collaborative project that has taken her to Macha, a city in the southern province of Zambia. In her talk, entitled “Media Infrastructures,” Parks placed emphasis on her particular role in the project, which has been to conduct ethnographic fieldwork—interviews and observation—in order to develop a more relational and embodied understanding of informational and communications technology (ICT) in the area. Taking into account the still-present colonialist histories of the region, basic resource infrastructures, the specific global-local connections that have emerged, and the gendering of internet technology within the community, Parks pushed against the quantitative data that we might typically associate with media and technology research by foregrounding the qualitative dimensions of the stories and experiences of those living in Macha. Through the recounting of her long-term engagement in the area, particularly her on-going interview process, Parks seemed again and again to return to questions that she had posed from the start: “Under what conditions should ICT integration take place?” and “How has ICT already re-configured daily life in the area?” Indeed, important questions to be asking, and certainly, as Parks’ work makes clear, questions to be asking across disciplines. If you couldn’t make it to the lecture last Thursday, please join us next year for the final two installments of the 2013-2014 HTNM lecture series, which will include talks from media scholars Lisa Nakamura and Alex Galloway.