Dear AoIRists - sent on behalf of our colleagues Fortunati and Bakardjieva - Call for papers: Special Issue of the European Journal of Cultural Studies ICTs and the Structural Transformation of the Private Sphere Edited by Maria Bakardjieva and Leopoldina Fortunati Dear Colleagues, The European Journal of Cultural Studies has expressed interest in publishing a special issue on the above topic. We invite scholars who conduct research in the area of new media in the private sphere and are interested in the questions we pose in our proposal to contribute original papers. Our goal is to have international diversity of contributions and hence experiences, sensitivities and conceptual perspectives. All submitted papers will undergo double-blind peer review. The deadline for submission of the completed papers is July 1, 2012. Please let us know if you have any questions. Feel free to send us your papers whenever you have them completed. Maria Bakardjieva (bakardji@ucalgary.ca)and Leopoldina Fortunati (fortunati.deluca@tin.it) ICTs and the Structural Transformation of the Private Sphere The objective of this special issue is to pick up the examination of ICTs in private spaces where domestication theory and research left off (Silverstone et al., 1992, Silverstone, 1994, Berker et al, 2006). The domestication perspective has enabled researchers to account for the active role of users in making sense of and appropriating new communication devices. The next step, in our view, is to ask what happens to the domesticators once the domesticated technologies have become deeply and intimately incorporated and inscribed into the spaces and rhythms of their daily lives. Do activities, relationships and roles in the household remain fundamentally the same, or may be some cultural and even civilizational changes take hold? Does the private sphere retain its basic structure, or does it undergo a significant re-configuration? Our main interest in this issue, then, would be to explore the transformations occurring in the private sphere as a result of the widespread use of ICTs. Sociological theory has considered the private sphere as typically exemplified by home life and family relationships as well as the very notions of the private that members of a culture share such as the proverbial bubble of personal space and the fuzzy, but nontheless persistent set of experiences individuals consider exclusively their own. Communication research, for its part, has shown how different media have systematically punctured and eroded the already porous boundary delineating the private sphere: from the startling ring of the telephone and the ensuing moral panic at the realization that any stranger could potentially disrupt the peace and quiet of the home to the intricate reconfiguration of the family?s routines and its members? relationships with the outside world that television brought about. The current generation of ITCs has carried that erosion further to the extent that the very idea of the private sphere has become problematic and almost untenable. The honoured abode of private life, the home, has been penetrated by gadgets and practices that decimate its introvert and intimate activities. At the same time fragments and instances of private life have broken out of the fragile boundaries of the home and have profusely populated the public world with the assistance of mobile devices. But if this is so, then how are some of the essential and defining functions of the private sphere being reconfigured and outsourced in the new media age? How, where and by whom is intimacy established as a central humanizing condition? How, where and by whom is the emotional nurturing of the human being and its moral education performed? How are human bodies and identities created and reproduced, if the primordial role of the family and the order of home space are being disrupted? Thus, the structural transformation of the private sphere poses also the question of the division of domestic labor and the personal and social position of women. Feminist research has already demonstrated that the appropriation and practices of use of ICTs have become a terrain of feminine initiative, creativity and social change. What has the influx of ICTs meant for women?s traditional responsibilities and the material and immaterial work they do in the household? Have women been able to appropriate new media technologies in ways consistent with their current role as mothers and ?handlers? of extended family networks? Or have they been swept away by the flood of new voices, enticements and imperatives channeled by ICTs? Have women been able to use ICTs for re-negotiating of their traditional roles and changing them? Have ICTs created ?more work for mother? (Cowan, 1983) and, if so, what kind of work is it? The private sphere, it can be argued, has been challenged by the market and, more broadly, by the economic system, on the one hand, and the public and semi-public world, on the other. It has been effectively taken over by interactions of commercial, ideological and sociable nature to the extent that its defining rituals ? the family dinner, the morning ?goodbye? kiss, the Sunday outing or game ? have been washed away by diversions that have drawn family members apart into their own individual enclaves of interest and sociability. Furthermore, the primary and most characteristic mode of communication among family members ? the immediate face-to-face and body-to-body encounter ? has been eclipsed by mediated exchanges such as the e-mail message or Skype call from one bedroom to another, or the texted announcement of coming back late tonight. The key function of the private sphere in reproducing and nurturing human bodies has been even more undervalued in a culture where disembodied activities and interactions have become the venerable norm. The economic system, for its part, has not stopped at radio jingles and television ads, but has brought the shopping mall into the heart of the living room and has injected commercial appeal into the most personal pursuits and intimate friendly interactions. It has reached for the place of the ultimate moral and cultural authority that shapes identity. Even more profoundly, it has devised techniques for extracting economic value from the affective labour of ICT users carried out within private spaces and times in an unprecedented volume and intensity (Terranova, 2004). This special issue will cast light on these developments through theoretically informed empirical studies that will cover a broad spectrum of issues and experiences related to the transformation of the private sphere across a variety of national contexts. We are hoping to be able to put together a diverse and yet conceptually consistent collection of contributions that trace the structural transformation of the private sphere in rich empirical detail and imaginatively consider its social and cultural implications. References: Berker, T., Hartmann, M., Punie, Y. & Ward, K., eds., (2006). Domestication of media and technology. Maidenhead and New York: Open University Press, pp. 80-102. Cowan, R. (1983) More work for mother: The ironies of household technology from the open hearth to the microwave. New York: Basic Books. Silverstone, R. (1994) Television and everyday life. London and New York: Routledge. Silverstone, R.; Hirsch, E., and Morley, D. (1992) Information and communication technologies and the moral economy of the household. In Roger Silverstone and Eric Hirsch (eds), Consuming technologies: media and information in domestic spaces (pp. 15?31). London: Routledge. Terranova, T. 2004. Network culture: Politics for the information age. London, Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto Press. ========================================================================== Format of mss: Each manuscript should contain: (i) title page with full title and subtitle (if any). For the purposes of blind refereeing, full name of each author with current affiliation and full address/phone/fax/email details plus short biographical note should be supplied on a separate sheet. Owing to the broad range of subject matter, authors are encouraged to supply the names of one or more potential referees with full address information included. (ii) abstract of 100-150 words (iii) up to 10 key words (iv) main text and word count -- suggested target is about 7000 words (including notes and references). Text to be clearly organized, with a clear hierarchy of headings and subheadings and quotations exceeding 40 words displayed, indented, in the text (v) end notes, if necessary, should be signalled by superscript numbers in the main text and listed at the end of the text before the references (vi) references should follow Harvard style, i.e. references are cited in the text by author and date with a full alphabetical listing at the end of the article. Articles in journals: Chen, K.H. (1996) 'Not Yet the Postcolonial Era', Cultural Studies 10(1): 37&BAD:ndash;70. Articles in books: Morris, M. (1988) The Pirate's Fiancée: Feminism Reading Postmodernism. London: Verso. Articles in edited books: Schudson, M. (1991) 'The Sociology of News Production Revisited', in J. Curran and M. Gurevitch (eds) Mass Media and Society, pp. 141&BAD:ndash;59. London: Arnold. Unpublished articles: Van Zoonen, L. (1996) 'One of the Girls? Or the Incipient Feminization of Journalism?', keynote address to the Norwegian Research Council, Oslo. Tables: tables should be typed (double line-spaced) on separate sheets and their position indicated by a marginal note in the text. All tables should have short descriptive captions with footnotes and their source(s) typed below the tables. Illustrations: all line diagrams and photographs are termed 'Figures' and should be referred to as such in the manuscript. They should be numbered consecutively. Line diagrams should be presented in a form suitable for immediate reproduction (i.e. not requiring redrawing), each on a separate A4 sheet. They should be reproducible to a final printed text area of 115 mm x 185 mm. Photographs should preferably be submitted as clear, glossy, unmounted black and white prints with a good range of contrast. All figures should have short descriptive captions typed on a separate sheet. AUTHORS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR OBTAINING PERMISSIONS FROM COPYRIGHT HOLDERS for reproducing through any medium of communication any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. Style: use a clear readable style, avoiding jargon. If technical terms or acronyms must be included, define them when first used. Use non-racist, non-sexist language and plurals rather than he/she. Spellings: UK or US spellings may be used with `-ize' spellings as given in the Oxford English Dictionary (e.g. organize, recognize). Punctuation: use single quotation marks with double quotes inside single quotes. Present dates in the form 1 May 1998. Do not use points in abbreviations, contractions or acronyms (e.g. AD, USA, Dr, PhD). Disks: on acceptance of your manuscript for publication, you will be asked to supply a diskette (preferably PC-compatible) of the final version. Proofs and offprints: authors will receive proofs of their articles and be asked to send corrections to SAGE within 3 weeks. They will receive a complimentary copy of the journal and 25 offprints of their article. Reviewers receive 5 offprints.