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36th International Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering (CAiSE 2024): Third Call for Papers
by Announce 13 Nov '23

13 Nov '23

*** Third Call for Papers *** 36th International Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering (CAiSE'24) June 3-7, 2024, 5* St. Raphael Resort and Marina, Limassol, Cyprus https://cyprusconferences.org/caise2024/ (*** Submission Deadline: November 24, 2023 AoE ***) The CAiSE’24 organization calls for full papers with a special emphasis on the theme of Information Systems in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as a transformative technology, revolutionizing various industries, and its significance in Information Systems cannot be overstated. AI-powered systems have the potential to streamline operations, enhance decision-making processes, and drive innovation across organizations. From data analysis to automated processes, AI is reshaping the way we leverage information in the digital age. The relevance of AI in IS extends beyond internal operations. AI-powered predictive analytics enables organizations to forecast trends, anticipate customer needs, and optimize resource allocation. This empowers businesses to adapt swiftly to changing market dynamics, gain a competitive edge, and make proactive decisions. AI algorithms can also detect anomalies and patterns that indicate potential security breaches, contributing to robust cybersecurity measures in information systems. However, while acknowledging the benefits, it is essential to consider the ethical implications of AI in information systems. Ensuring data privacy, addressing bias in algorithms, and maintaining transparency are vital aspects that need to be carefully managed and regulated to foster trust and accountability. In addition to offering an exciting scientific program, CAiSE’24 will feature a best paper award, a journal special issue, and a PhD-thesis award: • Best Paper Award‚ prize EUR 1000 (sponsored by Springer) • A small selection of best papers will be invited to submit enhanced versions for consideration in a special issue of Elsevier Information Systems journal dedicated to this conference. • PhD-Thesis Award • Best PhD thesis of a past CAiSE Doctoral Consortium author (co-sponsored by the CAiSE Steering Committee and Springer) Papers should be submitted in PDF format. Submissions must conform to Springer‚ LNCS format and should not exceed 15 pages, including all text, figures, references, and appendices. Submissions not conforming to the LNCS format, exceeding 15 pages, or being obviously out of the scope of the conference, will be rejected without review. See the guidelines here: https://www.springer.com/comp/lncs/authors.html . The results described must be unpublished and must not be under review elsewhere. Three to five keywords characterizing the paper should be listed at the end of the abstract. Each paper will be reviewed by at least two program committee members and, if positively evaluated, by one additional program board member. The selected papers will be discussed among the paper reviewers online and during the program board meeting. As the review process is not blind, please indicate your name and affiliation on your submission. Accepted papers will be presented at CAiSE’24 and published in the Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) conference proceedings. We invite three types of original and scientific papers. The type of submission must be indicated in the submission system. Each contribution should explicitly address the engineering or the operation of information systems, clearly identify the information systems problem addressed, the expected impact of the contribution to information system engineering or operation, and the research method used. We strongly advise authors to clearly emphasize these aspects in their paper, including the abstract. Technical papers describe original solutions (theoretical, methodological or conceptual) in the field of IS Engineering. A technical paper should clearly describe the situation or problem tackled, the relevant state of the art, the position or solution suggested and its potential‚ as well as demonstrate the benefits of the contribution through a rigorous evaluation. Empirical papers evaluate existing problem situations including problems encountered in practice, or validate proposed solutions with scientific means, i.e., by empirical studies, experiments, case studies, experience reports, simulations, etc. Scientific reflection on problems and practices in industry also falls into this category. The topic of the evaluation presented in the paper as well as its causal or logical properties must be clearly stated. The research method must be sound and appropriate. Exploratory papers describe completely new research positions or approaches, in order to face a generic situation arising because of new ICT tools, new kinds of activities, or new IS challenges. They must precisely describe the situation and demonstrate why current methods, tools, ways of reasoning, or meta-models are inadequate. They must also rigorously present their approach and demonstrate its pertinence and correctness in addressing the identified situation. The topics of contribution include but are not limited to: • Novel Approaches to IS Engineering ◦ Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning ◦ Robotic Process Automation (RPA) ◦ Big Data, Data Science and Analytics ◦ Blockchain applications in IS ◦ Simulation and Digital Twins  ◦ IS for collaboration and social computing  ◦ Virtual reality / Augmented Reality ◦ Context-aware, autonomous and adaptive IS • Models, Methods and Techniques in IS Engineering ◦ Ontologies and Ontology Engineering ◦ Conceptual modeling, languages and design ◦ Requirements engineering ◦ Process modeling, analysis and improvement ◦ Process automation, mining and monitoring ◦ Models and methods for evolution and reuse ◦ Domain and method engineering ◦ Product lines, variability and configuration management ◦ Compliance and alignment handling ◦ Active and interactive models ◦ Quality of IS models for analysis and design ◦ Visualization techniques in IS ◦ Decision models and business intelligence ◦ Knowledge graphs ◦ Human-centered techniques • Architectures and Platforms for IS Engineering ◦ Distributed, mobile and open architecture ◦ Big Data architectures ◦ Cloud- and edge-based IS engineering ◦ Service oriented and multi-agent IS engineering ◦ Multi-platform IS engineering ◦ Cyber-physical systems and Internet of Things (IoT) ◦ Workflow and Process Aware Information Systems (PAIS) ◦ Handling of real time data streams ◦ Content management and semantic Web ◦ Crowdsourcing platforms ◦ Conversational agents (chatbots) ◦ Microservices design and deployment • Domain-specific and Multi-aspect IS Engineering ◦ IT governance ◦ eGovernment ◦ Autonomous and smart systems (smart city management, smart vehicles, etc.) ◦ IS for healthcare ◦ Educational Systems and Learning Analytics ◦ Value and supply chain management ◦ Industry 4.0 ◦ Sustainability and social responsibility management ◦ Privacy, security, trust, and safety management ◦ IS in the post-COVID world Submit your paper using the Easy Chair link: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=caise2024 . IMPORTANT DATES • Abstract Submission: 24th November 2023 (AoE) • Paper Submission: 1st December 2023 (AoE) • Notification of Acceptance: 23rd February 2024 • Camera-ready Papers: 5th April 2024 • Author registration: 5th April 2024 ORGANISATION General Chairs • Haris Mouratidis, University of Essex, UK • Pnina Soffer, University of Haifa, Israel Local Organizing and Finance Chair • George A. Papadopoulos, University of Cyprus, Cyprus Program Chairs • Giancarlo Guizzardi, University of Twente, The Netherlands • Flavia Maria Santoro, University of the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Other Committee Members https://cyprusconferences.org/caise2024/committees/

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Fully Funded MA and PHD positions in Communication at University of Illinois at Chicago
by Yuan, Jingyan Elaine 10 Nov '23

10 Nov '23

The Department of Communication at University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) is currently accepting Fall 2024 applicants for M.A. and Ph.D. programs. The deadline is January 15, 2024. Recently ranked in the top 50 worldwide, the Department of Communication at UIC focuses on new media and technology, with an emphasis on a diverse range of cutting-edge interdisciplinary areas of study: * mass media + journalism studies * social media + social networks * mobile media * gaming + game studies * political communication * platform studies * digital economy + industries * privacy, sociality, + public policy * critical cultural studies + race and gender studies * critical data literacies * science and technology studies * interpersonal relations * global communication and culture * public health + wellness * human machine communication * social computational sciences Located in the heart of Chicago, we collaborate with the UIC Electronic Visualization Laboratory, the pre-eminent virtual reality and high-speed networking research site. The Department is the birthplace and current home of New Media & Society and Social Media + Society, two leading journals in the field. A signature feature of Department programs is their flexibility. Students pursue individual aims with advice from an adviser, designing a course of study to reach their own educational goals. Because the Department strongly encourages interdisciplinary work, students may study with scholars in communication and allied disciplines. Interdepartmental concentrations are available in Electronic Security and Privacy<http://securityigert.uic.edu/>, ck Studies<https://blst.uic.edu/academics/courses-2/graduate-studies-2/>, Gender and Women’s Studies<https://gws.uic.edu>, and in Latin American and Latino Studies<https://lals.uic.edu>. Our graduate programs offer competitive funding for all admitted graduate students. For more information about funding visit: https://hr.uic.edu/hr-staff-managers/compensation/minima-for-graduate-appoi… For more information about how to apply visit: https://comm.uic.edu/academics/graduate-studies/prospective-students/applic… For inquiry please contact: Director of Graduate Studies: Jingyan Elaine Yuan (eyuan(a)uic.edu<mailto:eyuan@uic.edu>) Department Head: Zizi Papacharissi (zizi(a)uic.edu<mailto:zizi@uic.edu>) Program Coordinator: Princy Daniel (pdanie7(a)uic.edu) Jingyan Elaine Yuan Associate Professor & Director of Graduate Studies Department of Communication University of Illinois at Chicago The Web of Meaning: the Internet in a changing Chinese society (Toronto UP). 2022 NCA APAC Outstanding Book Award

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Reminder: Online Book Talk on Feminist Technopolitics from the Global South
by Rafael Grohmann 10 Nov '23

10 Nov '23

Hi! ICYMI: Now, 2PM ET, I'll host an online book talk with Firuzeh Shokooh Valle, author of "In Defense of Solidarity and Pleasure: Feminist Technopolitics from the Global South" (Stanford University Press, 2023). This will happen via DigiLabour YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5su09ILfgQ Check your time zone! About the book: Including women in the global South as users, producers, consumers, designers, and developers of technology has become a mantra against inequality, prompting movements to train individuals in information and communication technologies and foster the participation and retention of women in science and technology fields. In this book, Firuzeh Shokooh Valle argues that these efforts have given rise to an idealized, female economic figure that combines technological dexterity and keen entrepreneurial instinct with gendered stereotypes of care and selflessness. Narratives about the "equalizing" potential of digital technologies spotlight these women's capacity to overcome inequality using said technologies, ignoring the barriers and circumstances that create such inequality in the first place as well as the potentially violent role of technology in their lives. In Defense of Solidarity and Pleasure examines how women in the Global South experience and resist the coopting and depoliticizing nature of these scripts. Drawing on fieldwork in Costa Rica and a transnational feminist digital organization, Shokooh Valle explores the ways that feminist activists, using digital technologies as well as a collective politics that prioritize solidarity and pleasure, advance a new feminist technopolitics. About the author: Firuzeh Shokooh Valle is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Franklin and Marshall College. Previously, she was a journalist in Puerto Rico covering violence against women, the LGBTQI+ community, migration, racism, and social movements, and earned numerous national awards for her investigative work. see you there! best, Rafael

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CFP: Twenty-First Century Media? Affective Bodies, Crowds and Collectives
by ganaele 10 Nov '23

10 Nov '23

Dear Colleagues, This might be of interest to some of you. CFP: Twenty-First Century Media? Affective Bodies, Crowds and Collectives 21-23 March, 2024, Delhi, India. In the last two decades, digital media infrastructures have spread worldwide, including the global South. Despite inequalities of access, low-cost mobile devices and cheaper broadband have connected large subaltern populations to media infrastructures. The effects are increasingly planetary, initiating a series of debates in media scholarship and cultural theory. Mediatisation has emerged as a material field that drives circulation, sharing, and modification, generating intense rhythms of political engagement and action. We are interested in this junction, the combinations of sensory media infrastructures with political metamorphoses. Abstract Deadline: 10 December, 2023. Links: Call page: https://sarai.net/events/call-for-papers-twenty-first-century-media-affecti… Twitter: https://twitter.com/csdsdelhi/status/1722499456166150229 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/csdsdelhi/posts/pfbid02Mkdu46NvMBpTdJAGhZCuW5mU37D… Insta: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CzbWc6gPy5E/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link -- Ganaele Langlois (she/her) Associate Professor and Chair Department of Communication & Media Studies York University

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Webinar: How is AI changing the teaching and academic landscape?
by Bahar Celik Muller 10 Nov '23

10 Nov '23

***Apologies for cross-posting*** Time and Date: Nov 6, 2023 03:00 PM (GMT) Register free here<https://bristol-ac-uk.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_QmaP_WTDQbq68ywP3EFJ1w#/r…>. All registrants will receive a recording of the event. Since the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, the higher education sector is abuzz with the ramifications of easily accessible AI. This webinar<https://bristol-ac-uk.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_QmaP_WTDQbq68ywP3EFJ1w#/r…> will be an opportunity to discuss how AI is changing the teaching and academic landscape, covering topics including moving beyond assessment integrity, student voices, rules and requirements and the wider tensions of algorithmic thinking. The event is hosted by Bristol University Press and will be chaired by Jessica Ogden, from the Bristol Digital Futures Institute at the University of Bristol. Participants: Mark Carrigan, Lecturer in Education at the University of Manchester Aisling Tierney, Lecturer in the Bristol Institute for Teaching and Learning Colin Gavaghan, Professor of Digital Futures at the University of Bristol David Beer, Professor of Sociology at the University of York Attendees will have the opportunity to ask questions and will be given a code for 50% off the panellists’ books published by Bristol University Press. Find out more and register free here<https://bristol-ac-uk.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_QmaP_WTDQbq68ywP3EFJ1w#/r…>. All the best, Bahar Muller (she/her) Senior Marketing Coordinator Keep up with all our news and get a discount on ALL Bristol University Press and Policy Press books by signing up to our newsletter<https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/signup-bup-pp?utm_source=signature&utm…>. New this month White Minds: Everyday Performance, Violence and Resistance<https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/white-minds?utm_source=signatur…> by Guilaine Kinouani New in our What Is It For? series What Are Animal Rights For?<https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/what-are-animal-rights-for?utm_source=…> by Steve Cooke Bristol University Press Digital Browse our free collections<https://bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/page/free-content?utm_source=sign…>, including decolonization and migration. Our 2023 charity is Suicide Prevention Bristol. Find out more and donate here<https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/charity?utm_source=signature&utm_mediu…>. Bristol University Press and Policy Press 1-9 Old Park Hill, Bristol BS2 8BB, UK Telephone: +44 117 455 7330

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Open Access Trust and Safety Course Material
by Marten Risius 10 Nov '23

10 Nov '23

Check out our free teaching resources from the Trust and Safety Teaching Consortium: https://stanfordio.github.io/TeachingTrustSafety/ The Consortium – academic, industry and non-profit experts in online trust and safety problems – has published a 13-module reading list and associated slide decks, recorded lectures, and exercises on topics like content moderation, government regulation, and metrics and measurement. Please use our materials to enhance your courses; just email to let us know so we can track our impact. The Consortium also facilitates networking among instructors teaching courses on online safety. Email us to join: trustandsafetyjournal(a)stanford.edu<mailto:trustandsafetyjournal@stanford.edu>.

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New CDT Research report: "More Tools, More Control: Lessons from Young Users on Handling Unwanted Messages Online"
by Dhanaraj Thakur 09 Nov '23

09 Nov '23

Hi all, We are excited to announce the publication of a new CDT research report "More Tools, More Control: Lessons from Young Users on Handling Unwanted Messages Online <https://cdt.org/insights/more-tools-more-control-lessons-from-young-users-o…>". The project, led by my colleague Michal Luria, presents the perspective of teenagers and young adults on the problem of unwanted and harmful content in online messaging. Using diary studies and interviews we studied the experiences of young people aged 14-21 over a 3 week period to understand the nature of unwanted messages they receive and how they address them. Our findings suggest that young people already employ several strategies for dealing with unwanted content. Indeed, they also had several ideas for how social media and other platforms can provide better tools to support their efforts at addressing unwanted content, which we outline in the report. We argue that as part of broader efforts to keep young people safe online, companies should invest more in supporting the ability of these users to protect themselves. You can find the PDF of the full report here <https://cdt.org/insights/more-tools-more-control-lessons-from-young-users-o…>. We also have an article in Tech Policy Press <https://techpolicy.press/want-to-keep-teens-safe-online-listen-to-them/> from Michal Luria and Aliya Bhatia on the relevance of these findings to current policy debates about teen safety online. Please feel free to share and we welcome your feedback. take care, Dhanaraj -- *Dhanaraj Thakur* (he/him) | Research Director Center for Democracy & Technology |*cdt.org <https://cdt.org/>* *E:* dthakur(a)cdt.org | *P:* +1 202 407 8849

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CFP: Critical Approaches to Visual Generative AI
by Kate Miltner 09 Nov '23

09 Nov '23

The Data, AI, and Algorithms in Society hub of the University of Sheffield Digital Society Network is hosting a one-day workshop in April 2024 aimed at scholars taking critical approaches to visual generative AI. This includes, but is by no means limited to, work on the following topics: - Visual AI and identity - Commercial applications of visual AI - The inequalities/biases of visual AI - The harms of visual AI - Visual AI and user behaviour - Visual AI and play/humour - The legal implications of visual AI - Visual AI imaginaries - Visual AI and mis/disinformation - Theoretical approaches to Visual AI - Visual AI as/and art - Visual AI and labour - Economies of visual AI - Visual AI and geopolitics/colonialism and colonial logics We invite scholars at all stages to submit a 500 word abstract (not including references). The deadline for submission is January 5, 2024. For more information and to submit, please visit: https://bit.ly/inferenceworkshop If you have any questions, please email Kate Miltner at k.miltner(a)sheffield.ac.uk.

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Announcing the winners of the LaborTech Awards!
by Rider, Karina (gxy9fq) 08 Nov '23

08 Nov '23

The Labor Tech Research Network (LTRN) is excited to announce the winners of our 2nd annual Book and Graduate Student Paper awards, as well as our inaugural Social Justice Award! LTRN is a community of people dedicated to analyzing issues of labor and technology from an anti-racist, feminist, and transnational perspective. We have over 500 members, including researchers, tech workers, policymakers, activists, and union organizers affiliated with institutions in over 50 countries. We encourage you to attend our virtual 4S session this Friday, Nov 10 from 3:40-5:30 PM Hawai’i time (1:40 AM GMT), where we’ll be hearing from award winners. Social Justice Award Winner: Marta Rozmyslowicz<https://humanityinaction.org/person/marta-rozmyslowicz/> Marta Rozmyslowicz worked as a warehouse associate at the first Amazon Fulfillment Center in Poland, “POZ1.” Experiencing first-hand the use of algorithms and artificial intelligence to push for higher productivity and speedup of work, her colleagues opted to unionize and started the Amazon section of their larger union, OZZ Inicjatywa Pracownicza (Workers’ Initiative). Marta was elected shop steward and a representative for the warehouse occupational health and safety commission. Her union’s actions prompted the Polish Labor Inspectorate to measure work intensity in terms of kilocalories burned on the job. The resulting study found that Amazon employees expend even twice the legal limit of energy, putting in tangible terms how the company is squeezing out the energy of more than one shift from workers. During the pandemic, Marta's union joined with Amazon workers from around the world to make important gains through campaigns like Make Amazon Pay. Even though Amazon located this POZ1 warehouse near the German border—to take advantage of cheaper labor in Poland, and to segment the workforce by nationality and ethnicity—her union used this to their advantage. Polish workers sought out connections with Amazon workers in Germany and founded Amazon Workers International. Since leaving Amazon, Marta has continued as a union organizer and legal representative of employees in labor court. In addition, she is pursuing a Thesis in Labor Law and conducting action-oriented research in a project called "Workers Fight Back Algorithms." Social Justice Award Honorable Mention: The Tech Workers Coalition Newsletter<https://news.techworkerscoalition.org/> The Tech Workers Coalition (TWC) is a collective of volunteer organizers promoting cross-collar solidarity in tech. TWC’s commitment to social justice is built around the ‘abolitionist mutual aid’ model of activism, emphasizing the leadership of women of color in labor organizing. TWC focuses on feminist, anti-racist, international and intergenerational solidarity, and amplifies tech and labor concerns in its newsletter, for which they collaborate with journalists. TWC runs a semi-weekly newsletter featuring stories from workers’ perspectives. The organizers set up calls with workers who reach out to them and turn the transcripts into stories, which the workers are asked to review and edit collaboratively with the organizers. TWC also offers worker-contributors a US$150 honorarium from their mutual aid fund. This main project of TWC has engaged thousands of workers over the past three years in reading and sharing organizing stories from peers. Over one thousand workers have shared their stories in one-on-one and group interviews. This is a remarkable contribution toward labor organizing, as TWC acts as a unique bridge between workers and the media, by foregrounding workers’ voices. The past and future projects of TWC highlight the detrimental effects of tech work on vast swathes of labor rights in diverse global contexts. Some of its projects also aim to build bridges between other organizations working on similar issues. TWC refers these workers to other legal and financial resources and shifts power to worker-led organizations. TWC also organizes teach-in sessions and learning clubs. In 2022, it held an intergenerational teach-in program for three days with 33 elder workers. In 2017, TWC hosted their first six-week Summer Learning Club. The event is now held online, with guests sharing their critical work, including book discussions. TWC is also advancing mutual aid organizing by focusing on mental health, in collaboration with social work and therapy allies, conducting trauma induced organizing interviews, and highlighting individual experiences in collective action. Book Award Winner: Karen Levy<https://www.karen-levy.net/>, Data Driven: Truckers, Technology, and the New Workplace Surveillance<https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691175300/data-driven> (Princeton University Press) Dr. Levy’s book is an exemplary, deeply researched study of a particular kind of technology in a specific occupational context: the use of electronic logging devices (ELD) in trucking in the U.S. The book gives broad political, economic, and cultural context for the implementation and reception of ELD’s by the many different stakeholders involved, as well as deep ethnographic descriptions of the realities of this kind of workplace surveillance and workers’ resistance to it. Dr. Levy’s depth of expertise—not only in this specific context of work but in thinking about technologies of working surveillance more generally—is apparent throughout the text as she deftly weaves together the perspectives of policymakers, trucking firms, ELD companies, and truckers themselves. The book also shines a light on the role of white working-class masculinity in trucker culture. Karen Levy is an Associate Professor in the Department of Information Science at Cornell University, associate member of the faculty at Cornell Law School, and field faculty in Sociology, Science and Technology Studies, Media Studies, and Data Science. Book Award Honorable Mention: Carolyn M. Cunningham<https://www.gonzaga.edu/academics/faculty-listing/detail/cunninghamc> and Heather M. Crandall<https://www.gonzaga.edu/academics/faculty-listing/detail/crandallm>, The Climate Girl Effect: Fridays, Flint, and Fire<https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781793639554/The-Climate-Girl-Effect-Fridays-Flint…> (Lexington Books) Drs. Cunningham and Crandall have written an excellent book that explores a wide range of activism labor and technology use for climate activism amongst girl leaders across the world. Female, non-adults and young adults have seldom been the subject of scholarship on labor and technology (excluding studies on influencers). The authors skillfully address and critique the pitfalls of the mainstream media constructions of these girl leaders as “exceptional”—and the structural roots of such framing in Western individualism and patriarchy. Informed by both eco-feminist and techno-feminist traditions, the authors showcase the labor, praxis, discourse, and technologies mobilized by “the climate girls” and the intersectional and coalitional communities they rely on and contribute towards building. The book produces new knowledge about the potentials of labor and technology, new forms of collective activism and community, and the intersections of women’s movements, labor movements, and climate actions. Carolyn M. Cunningham is Professor and Chair of Communication & Leadership Studies at Gonzaga University. Heather M. Crandall is an Associate Professor and Department Chair of Communication Studies at Gonzaga University. Graduate Student Paper Award Winner: Bhumika Chauhan<https://as.nyu.edu/departments/sociology/people/current-phd-students/chauha…>, “Uneven Deskilling: Recasting the Smile Curve in a Transnational Software Firm.” Rich in its theoretical framework and methodology, Chauhan’s paper presents a crucial case study of uneven deskilling in a global technology firm. Existing accounts of intrafirm offshoring optimistically conclude that when firms in the Global North offshore aspects of a particular labor process to the Global South, this offshoring might help Global South workers “move up the value chain,” or upgrade their skills to move into higher-paying roles. The software services sector, especially in India, has been considered an exemplar of this process, and many expected the differences between the Global North and South nodes of global production to disappear. However, drawing on 70 interviews with software engineers in the U.S. and India, Chauhan demonstrates that even when firms combine workers from the Global North and Global South into a single labor process, these workers remain segmented and workers in the Global South and up functioning deskilling. On the one hand, onshore workers tend to do conception tasks that involve design, branding, and distribution--all relatively high-value-added activities. On the other hand, offshore workers were delegated execution tasks, meaning they executed the onshore team's designs, usually by coding and testing the product. This means that directive authority, without exception, always resided within onshore employees, even when offshore workers occupied higher positions the organizational chart than their onshore counterparts. Offshore engineers were effectively locked out of upper-level management and high-skill design and architecting, thus being deskilled on the basis of their offshore location alone. By challenging optimistic narratives of convergence and upgrading in the Global South, Chauhan's paper raises important questions about the long-term potential of the software services sector for development. Bhumika Chauhan is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Sociology at New York University.

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Lecture and Panel: Asian/American Game Studies
by Gerald Voorhees 08 Nov '23

08 Nov '23

Dear friends and colleagues, Please join us for two upcoming events (online or in-person) hosted at the University of Waterloo Games Institute <https://uwaterloo.ca/games-institute/>: 1. On Tuesday, 14 November from 11AM-12PM (EST/UTC-4): Skins Deep: Race, Gender, and Nationality in eSports <https://uwaterloo.ca/games-institute/events/skins-deep-race-gender-and-nati…>, a lecture by Tara Fickle (Northwestern University). Register for free using this Eventbrite link <https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/guest-lecture-skins-deep-race-gender-and-nation…> . Since the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985, Asia has remained the center of the manufacturing of video game hardware (China and Southeast Asia), the center of game innovation and the birthplace of most game genres (Japan), and the largest reliable resource of consumers (nearly half of game players reside in Asia). Dr. Fickle asks how video games, in being inextricably tethered to Asia, continue to produce new racializations of Asians around the globe, and the varied impacts games have had on Asian diasporas in North America through forms of digitization, “gamic” worlds, and play itself. The talk will explore a range of relevant contemporary topics in Asian/American gaming, such as esports, visual novels, racial representations, gender, labor and industry culture. 2. On Monday, 20 November from 11AM-12:30PM (EST/UTC-4): Emerging Voices in Asian/American Game Studies <https://uwaterloo.ca/games-institute/events/emerging-voices-asian-american-…>, featuring Matthew Howard (Loyola University), Sarah Ganzon (Simon Fraser University), and Huan He (Vanderbilt University). Register for free using this Eventbrite link <https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/panel-emerging-voices-in-asianamerican-game-stu…> . This panel highlights emerging scholars in Asian/American games studies. Panelists will present recent and/or ongoing work, sharing a glimpse of the emerging research questions animating the field. Topics include He’s analysis of NPC discourse, particularly the phenomena of NPC streaming, as an Asiatic form, Ganzon’s examination of Filipino political activism in digital games that extend public and community spaces, and Howard’s inquiry on 'region locking' in online games as racial practices.

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