Digital Crossroads:
Media, Migration and Diaspora in a Transnational Perspective

Conference website: http://www.digitalcrossroads.nl

28-30 June, 2012
Utrecht University, the Netherlands

Keynote speakers:

Shakuntala Banaji
London School of Economics and Political Science, UK
Kirsten Drotner
University of Southern Denmark, Denmark
Radhika Gajjala
Bowling Green State University, USA
Eva Lam
University of Northwestern, USA
Lisa Nakamura
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA
Liesbet van Zoonen
Loughborough University, UK and Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands

Because of the disjunctive and unstable interplay of commerce, media, national policies, and consumer fantasies, ethnicity, once a genie contained in the bottle of some sort of locality (however large), has now become a global force, forever slipping in and through the cracks between states and borders – Appadurai 1996, p. 41, Modernity at Large

The rapid development of digital technologies has radically transformed ways of keeping in touch with home cultures and diasporic networks. Moreover, the notion of migration has undergone significant shifts, coming to signifyimaginaries on the move which are not necessarily linked to geographical displacement. The aim of this conference is to address the relationship between migration and digital technologies across national contexts and ethnic belonging. Migrancy embeds many of the local and global paradoxes that alsopertain to digital media with their compression of space and time. However, the link between the two fields is still under-theorized and in need of more situated and comparative analysis. Drawing from approaches from the humanities and social sciences (media theory, communication studies, learning sciences, gender studies, cultural studies, postcolonial theory, migration and transnational studies, among others), the primary aim of this conference is to explore how the study of digitalization and migration challenges existing notions of diaspora, identity, nation, family, learning, literacy, social networks, youth, body, gender and ethnicity, asking for new approaches and a rethinking of traditional social and cultural categories.

The conference comes at the end of a five-year High Potential project, entitled “Wired Up: Digital media as innovative socialization practices for migrant youth”, carried out by the Faculty of Humanities (project leader Dr. Sandra Ponzanesi) and the Faculty of Social Sciences (project leader Prof. Dr. Mariette de Haan) at Utrecht University in collaboration with Vanderbilt University, USA (Dr. Kevin Leander, Peabody College for Education). The project was funded by the Executive Board of Utrecht University to stimulate interdisciplinary research.

Organization
Dr. Sandra Ponzanesi: conference chair
Dr. Fadi Hirzalla: conference coordinator

Prof. Dr. Mariette de Haan: scientific committee
Dr. Kevin Leander: scientific committee

Dr. Fleur Prinsen: conference committee
Dr. Koen Leurs: conference committee
Asli Ünlosoy, MSC: conference committee
Dr. Lisa Schwartz: conference committee

The opening is onThursday 28 June at 9.45 in the Aula of the Academic Building. For more information please access the program overview (.pdf). The full programme with abstracts and bios is available online:

http://www.digitalcrossroads.nl

For further information please e-mail: info@digitalcrossroads.nl

Added by KL.

English: Printed copies of Koen Leurs's dissertation Digital passages. Moroccan-Dutch youths performing diaspora, gender and youth-cultural identities across digital space have come in from Ipskamp Drukkers! If you are interested in receiving a copy, please send Koen Leurs an e-mail at K.H.A.Leurs@uu.nl.

Koen Leurs will defend his dissertation in public on June 27th, at 12.45 @ Domplein 29, Utrecht. Everyone is welcome to attend. Click here for more information.

The dissertation is also available for download in the online university library digital repository.

****************************************************************************

Nederlands: Gedrukte exemplaren van het proefschrift van Koen Leurs getiteld "Digital passages. Moroccan-Dutch youths performing diaspora, gender and youth-cultural identities across digital space" zijn binnengekomen, gedrukt door Ipskamp Drukkers. Als u geïnteresseerd bent in een exemplaar, stuur dan gerust een e-mail naar K.H.A.Leurs@uu.nl.

Koen Leurs verdedigt zijn proefschrift op 27 juni om 12.45. U bent van harte welkom @ Domplein 29, Utrecht ! Klik hier voor het persbericht: "Multiculturele samenleving floreert op internet".

Het volledige proefschrift is ook beschikbaar in de digitale proefschriftencollectie.

Added by KL.

We are happy to announce the online publication of two reports to disseminate findings of the large scale questionnaire that we carried out among 1403 youths in the Netherlands. Authors: Fadi Hirzalla, Mariëtte de Haan and Asli Ünlüsoy.

Summarizing white paper: download here (.pdf, 30 pp., 680 kb)
Short version of the full research report. This text summarizes the findings of a survey that was conducted within the framework of the Wired Up project.

Full research report: download here (.pdf, 146 pp., 1.3 mb)
This report contains a broad exploration of a survey that was conducted within the framework of the Wired Up project.

Added by KL.

Digital Multiculturalism in the Netherlands: Religious, Ethnic, and Gender Positioning by Moroccan-Dutch Youth

Our article submitted to Religion and Gender has just been published:

LEURS, K., MIDDEN, E., PONZANESI, S.. Digital Multiculturalism in the Netherlands: Religious, Ethnic, and Gender Positioning by Moroccan-Dutch Youth. Religion and Gender, 2(1)

Abstract:
This article focuses on digital practices of Moroccan-Dutch adolescents in the Netherlands. The digital sphere is still rather understudied in the Netherlands. However, it offers a unique, entry to intersecting issues of religiosity, ethnicity and gender as well as to their implications for thinking about multiculturalism from new vantage points. What do digital practices such as online discussion board participation tell us about identity and multiculturalism? The three forms of position acquisition under discussion (gender, religion and ethnic positioning) show that neither religion, ethnicity, nor gender cease to exist in the digital realm but are constantly negotiated, reimagined and relocated. Drawing from the work of Modood, Gilroy and other critics of gender, media, multiculturalism and postcoloniality, we argue that online activities of the Moroccan-Dutch youth not only offer an important critique of mainstream media debates on multiculturalism, but also create space for alternative bottom-up interpretations of everyday practices of multiculturalism in the Netherlands.

Open-access, available at: http://www.religionandgender.org/index.php/rg/article/view/36

Added by KL.

General theme of the LRA congress: Expanding Access, Knowledge and Participation

The conference was held in Jacksonville, Florida from November 30 to December 3.

Wired Up principal investigator, professor Kevin Leander, Senior Postdoc Fleur Prinsen and Lisa Schwartz presented at LRA 2011.

Fleur Prinsen presented in a Symposium titled ' Multidiscursive literacy practices: Analyzing youth multimodal textual production across social and digital contexts'. The title of her presentation was: 'Reading' their network, and 'Writing' one into being.

The Social Network approach was the center of attention in the Presidential adress as well and seems to be a promising approach to further literacy research.

Added by KL.

The article "communicative spaces of their own: migrant girls performing selves using instant messaging software" Koen Leurs wrote together with Sandra Ponzanesi has been published in Feminist Review, isse 99 on 'Media Transformations'.

Special issue description:
How is gender authorship and use manifest in the engagement within communication technologies and networks in a global media environment? In this special issue, edited by Lizzie Thynne and Nadje Al-Ali, theorizations of globalized media are interrogated through studies of actual media use in transnational contexts, including bloggers in the Iranian diaspora and young Moroccan-Dutch women creating their own spaces through instant messaging. Leading documentary-maker Kim Longinotto also discusses how she creates feminist interventions in the media landscape.

Abstract:
In this article, we argue how instant messaging (IM) is actively made into a communicative space of their own among migrant girls. Triangulating data gathered through large-scale surveys, interviews and textual analysis of IM transcripts, we focus on Moroccan-Dutch girls who use instant messaging as a space where they can negotiate several issues at the crossroads of national, ethnic, racial, age and linguistic specificities. We take an intersectional perspective to disentangle how they perform differential selves using IM both as an ‘onstage’ activity through which they express their communal, public and global youth cultural belongings and as a ‘backstage’ activity through which they articulate their individual, private and intimate identity expression. Instant messaging appears to be a space where they can strategically (re-)position themselves. The relationship between the online world of IM and the off-line world is shown to be intricate and complex; at certain points, both worlds overlap and at others they diverge. Despite all existing constraints that are both related to gender restrictions, often disenfranchised family backgrounds, religious dictums, and surveillance by parents, siblings and peers, which affect Moroccan-Dutch girls in specific ways, IM is also understood as a unique space for exerting their agency in autonomous, playful and intimate ways.
Keywords:
adolescent migrant girls; Moroccan-Dutch youth; instant messaging; communicative space; intersectionality; performativity of self

Click here to download the article if you or your library have a subscription to the journal:
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/fr/journal/v99/n1/abs/fr201139a.html.

Alternatively e-mail K.H.A.Leurs<at>uu.nl to request a copy of the article.

Added by KL.

Special Issue: Media and migration: learning in a globalized world

Learning, Media and Technology is acknowledged as one of the learning academic journals in the fields of educational technology and educational media.

Proposals are invited for papers for a special issue of the journal on the theme of “Media and migration: learning in a globalized world”. The special issue will be edited by Mariëtte de Haan (Utrecht University) and Kevin Leander (Vanderbilt University).

We are currently soliciting abstracts for proposed papers for the special issue. Abstracts should be no longer than 300 words and be accompanied by up to six keywords.
- Deadline for submission of abstract: 15th December 2011
- Successful authors informed: 20th January 2012
- Deadline for submission of full papers: 15th June 2012

Full papers are expected to be between 4,000 and 6,000 words (please refer to the journal website for full ‘instructions for authors’). All papers will be subject to the usual blind reviewing and refereeing processes.

Please send abstracts and keywords to the guest editors by 15th December 2011:
- M.dehaan@uu.nl
- kevin.leander@vanderbilt.edu

Please put ‘abstract Learning, Media and Technology’ in the subject.

To open the CFP with more information in a PDF file , click here
To go to the website of the journal, click here.

Added by KL.

General Theme of ISCAR Congress

ENHANCING THE CULTURAL AND THE ACTIVITY APPROACH FOR THE NEW GENERATION DEVELOPMENT IN A GLOBAL WORLD.

The Congress was held in Rome, September 5-10, 2011 and is organized by the University of Rome “Sapienza” Faculty of Psychology 2, Department of Developmental, Social and Educational Psychology.

Wired Up principal investigator Mariette de Haan and Kevin Leander, Post-doc's Fleur Prinsen and Lisa Schwartz and PhD-student Asli Unlusoy participated in ISCAR 2011.

De Haan and Leander presented on "Identity and learning in extended and heterogeneous spaces: A social network approach". Read the abstract here.

Prinsen and Unlusoy held poster presentations:

Fleur Prinsen - Lived in spaces and identity practics of migrant youth. Achieving a sense of belonging in Hybrid Social Networks (click to download as .pdf)
Asli Unlusoy - Youth Networks: Ethno-Cultural Diversity and Informal Learning Relations Online
(click to download as .pdf)

Access the conference website here.

Added by KL.

International Conference // May 13-15, 2011 // Massachusetts Institute of Technology
For this seventh Media in Transition conference, we focus directly on our core topic – the experience of transition. Has the digital age confirmed and exponentially increased the cultural instability and creative destruction that are often said to define advanced capitalism? Does living in a digital age mean we may live and die in what the novelist Thomas Pynchon has called “a ceaseless spectacle of transition”? The nearly limitless range of design options and communication choices available now and in the future is both exhilarating and challenging, inciting innovation and creativity but also false starts, incompatible systems, planned obsolescence. How are we coping with the instability of platforms?

Wired Up principal investigator Sandra Ponzanesi and PhD-candidate Koen Leurs will present "Mind the Gap: Space Invaders! Migrant Youth Online and the ‘Internetworked’ Experiences of Transition".

Abstract: Intensified patterns of migration and advanced forms of digital technology are reconfiguring the interface between the local and the global. Migrant youth are a privileged site to study these interactions as they also negotiate between different generations and national belongings while creating alternative modalities for self-expression. Our analysis will focus on how these negotiations among multiple axes of belonging and creative self positioning takes place online as the internet is considered to be a place of virtual connectivity beyond physical and political borders and of liberation from markers of otherness, such as race, ethnicity, gender, which are particularly relevant in defining the migrant condition. We will explore how migrant youth become “space invaders“ (Purwar, 2004) of the digital realm. Drawing on empirical survey and interview findings from our Utrecht University research project Wired Up , we make a plea to approach conjunctures of transition of digital media and immigration from a postcolonial and intersectional perspective. A focus on intersectional socio-cultural configurations of subordination and empowerment enables us to ask ‘the other question’ (Matsuda, 1991: 1189), highlighting how various hidden axes of differentiation – such as diaspora, adolescence, gender, generation, and religion – may impact differently upon the (digitally mediated) lives and identities of immigrant youth.

See http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/mit7/index.html

Added by KL.

March 10-12 in TrouwAmsterdam the VideoVortex #6 event will take place! With new conferences and workshops, the world of online video is on the stage again.

Since 2007, Video Vortex events, conferences, workshops, and exhibitions have taken place throughout (and outside of) Europe, and includes the publication of the first Video Vortex Reader (2008), and the second one being published March 2011. With this program, the Institute of Network Cultures in Amsterdam, and its project partners, have been initiating and facilitating a deep study of online video in its diverse forms and uses, and further, its impact both on, and within, the information society.

Wired Up researcher Koen Leurs will present preliminary analyses of video platform use (e.g. YouTube) among Dutch-Moroccan youth, based on results from our large-scale survey and in-depth interviews.

See http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/videovortex/about

Added by KL.

The Digital Media and Learning Conference 2011, March 3-5, 2011 @ Long Beach, California is the second annual event organized by the Digital Media and Learning Hub at the University of California, Irvine. The conference is designed to be an inclusive, international and annual gathering of scholars and practitioners in the field, focused on fostering interdisciplinary and participatory dialog and linking theory, empirical study, policy, and practice.

Senior Wired Up researchers Kevin Leander and Mariette de Haan are presenting on the theme of Youth, Digital Media and Empowerment. Their presentations are entitled 'Examining the socially networked identities of immigrant youth' and 'Learning networks of immigrant and non-immigrant youth'.

See http://dmlcentral.net/conference2011
And access the conference program directly through this link.

Added by KL.

Wired Up researcher Koen Leurs will present preliminary analyses of online forum discussion use among Dutch-Moroccan youth, based results from our large-scale survey and on the basis of in-depth interviews.

See
http://www.genderstudies.nl/
http://www.uu.nl/faculty/humanities/NL/Actueel/Agenda/Pages/20110218-national-research-day.aspx

Added by KL.

Wired up researchers Fadi Hirzalla and Koen Leurs attended Etmaal 2011.

Koen Leurs also presented his poster entitled "Dutch-Moroccan youth engaging with online discussion forums: triangulating findings on popularity, gender specificity and purposes".

You can download the poster here (.pdf / 8.6 mb)

Added by KL.

(In Dutch:)
Wired Up onderzoeker Fadi Hirzalla zat samen met Floris Müller een werkgroep voor getiteld
"Internet als koningsweg van de islam?" waarin de volgende vragen besproken werden:

Jonge moslims gebruiken het internet intensief voor verschillende doeleinden, variërend van discussie voeren op webfora tot het volgen van religieuze instructies van gebedshuizen en andere organisaties. Dat deze trend niet zonder maatschappelijke zorgen of vragen gepaard gaat, heeft alles te maken met het zeer brede, intensieve en kritische publieke debat dat over de islam, als religieuze praktijk en ideologie, in de laatste jaren in Nederland wordt gevoerd. Hoe kan het internet jonge moslims helpen bij het weerbaar zijn tegen kritiek en uitsluiting in een relatief ‘islamonvriendelijke’ context? Welke gevaren herbergt het internet voor de ontwikkeling van jonge moslims die nog zielzoekend zijn? Moet en kan de overheid actiever de mogelijkheden van het internet benutten om jonge moslims online te begeleiden, helpen en stimuleren in hun emancipatie? En ze tegelijkertijd juist ver weghouden van mogelijke gevaren op het web? Het in een open en levendige discussie bespreken van deze en andere vragen vormt de inzet van de werkgroep ‘Internet als koningsweg van de islam?’.

Voor meer informatie zie
-website Zinzoekers op het web: http://www.ikonrtv.nl/zinzoekers/
-informatie over de werkgroepen: http://www.ikonrtv.nl/zinzoekers/?page_id=92#5
- het krantenartikel "Op YouTube hebben islamvrouwen plots een eigen wil", geschreven door Fadi Hirzalla en Liesbeth van Zoonen, verschenen in Trouw op 17 november 2010.

De Stichting ZinZoekers op het Web is opgericht in augustus 2010 en is gevestigd in Amsterdam. De stichting heeft ten doel het thema ‘Religie en internet’ blijvend onder de aandacht te brengen van een zo groot mogelijke groep mensen.

Added by KL.

Wired Up team members Asli Ünlüsoy, prof. Mariëtte de Haan and dr. Kevin Leander will participate in the meeting of SIG10 and SIG21 Moving through cultures of learning that will take place in Utrecht, September 2 and 3, 2010.

Friday September 3, Asli will present on the topic of " Youth Networks as New Learning Environments" in a session on Technologies and Learning.

Objective and scope Moving through cultures of learning:
The aim of the meeting is to provide a forum for the exchange of research findings and new ideas on the theme of Moving through cultures of learning. Teaching and learning take place in particular language and symbolic contexts. Classrooms are characterized by the use of particular discursive, symbolic and social tools, which teachers and pupils use in their everyday interactions. The focus in this meeting is on the transitions students, teachers and parents experience, when they move from one context to another, such as from school to the home situation, from one discursive context to another, from one language to another. Migrant students, in particular, face the transition between cultural contexts on a daily basis and have to adapt to the demands of various cultural contexts. The issues of transition between situations with different cultural rules and perspectives are central in this meeting of SIG 10 and SIG 21. This theme provides ample space for discussion both for the separate SIGs and for the SIGs jointly. It also allows discussions on a broad scale from microgenetic studies of classroom interaction to issues of educational policy.

Added by KL.

The Wired Up team is happy to announce to have hired two post-doc researchers.
From June onwards, Fleur Prinsen has joined the Wired Up research team as a post-doc. From July onwards, Fadi Hirzalla has joined the team, also in capacity of post-doc. Welcome!

Fleur Prinsen	Fadi Hirzalla

Added by KL.

From 4-16 July, Koen Leurs participates in the Oxford Internet Institute Summer Doctoral Program (SDP). The aim of the programme is to bring together advanced doctoral students engaged in dissertation research relating to the Internet and other ICTs. By sharing their work and learning from leading academics in the field, students can enhance the quality and significance of their thesis research and create a peer network of excellent young researchers.

Read more: click here

From 22-26 June, Koen Leurs participated in the International Communication Association annual conference, this year the event was held in Singapore. Koen received travel grants from the Ethnicity and Race in Communication Division and the Feminist Scholarship Division to attent the conference. Koen held two presentations, one on "Mediated Crossroads: Youthful Digital Diasporas" and another on Performing gender and ethnicity in sociotechnological networks, the case of Instant Messenger". Also he participated in the popular communication research methodologies pre-conference workshop and he chaired one session on "Gendered discourses and networks of science, technology and modernity".

Find out more about ICA here.

Added by KL.

The Vanderbilt International Office publishes a bi-annual magazine, Vanderbilt International, that highlights international collaborations happening at Vanderbilt. A story about the Wired Up project has recently appeared in the Spring/Summer edition of Vanderbilt International.

Click here to read the article and click here to access the journal

Added by KL.

Beschrijving van de site van Mira Media:

" Feiten & Cijfers over jongeren en internet
De nieuwste editie in de serie Feiten en Cijfers van Mira Media gaat over jongeren en internet, inmiddels onlosmakelijk met elkaar verbonden.
In het eerste deel geven we een algemene indruk van het huidige internetgebruik van Nederlandse jongeren, waarbij ook aandacht voor het nieuwsgebruik via internet en het gebruik van sociale media. In het tweede deel gaan we wat dieper in op de rol van internet in het leven van jongeren met een niet-Nederlandse achtergrond. Op welke manier gebruiken deze jongeren het internet om hun stem te laten horen? En hoe geven allochtone jongeren vorm aan hun identiteit op internet? Dit zijn vragen waarop we aan de hand van verschillende visies en onderzoeken een antwoord proberen te geven. Naast Nederlands onderzoek passeren ook enkele resultaten uit buitenlands onderzoek de revue."

Klik hier om de rapportage te bekijken.

Toegevoegd door KL.

The workshop is organized as part of “Postcolonial Europe”, a two-year international research network, sponsored by the AHRC and involving the Universities of Leeds, Munich and Utrecht. Until recently, most work done in comparative postcolonial studies focussed on Europe’s ex-colonial peripheries. Increasing emphasis is now being placed, however, on the after-effects of colonialism on European metropolitan cultural practice, and on those power relations within Europe that can be analysed as direct or indirect forms of colonial power.

Sandra Ponzanesi and Koen Leurs will be participating in this event.

Koen Leurs is holding a presentation entitled "Mediated crossroads: youthful digital diasporas".
In this talk, the focus is on the various strategies and tactics taken up by migrant youth to maintain digital diasporas. From a post-colonial standpoint, we tease out how digital diasporas have evolved over time from transnational public spheres to rhizomatic, hypertextual formations. Diasporas are not homogeneous and resist generalization, but we distinguish three common strategies in how they become rejuvenated digitally: (1) the forging of transnational public spheres based on maintaining ofvirtual social relations by people scattered across the globe (2) new forms of networked youth branding (3) the cultural production of innovative hypertexts.

Click here and here to learn more about the workshop.

Added by KL.

Wired Up team members prof. Mariëtte de Haan and Asli Ünlüsoy will participate in theSeventh International Conference on Networked Learning, taking place May 3 & 4 in Aalborg, Denmark.

The Networked Learning Conference is an international, research-based conference. Since its inception in 1998 the conference has developed a strong following by international researchers. In addition it is well supported by practitioners, managers and learning technologists interested in contributing to and hearing about research in this area. The conference is considered a major event in the international 'technology enhanced learning' conference circuit.

Click here to go to the conference website.

Added by KL.

Universiteitsdag 27 maart 2010
Voor alumni, studenten en medewerkers

Op 27 maart vindt de Universiteitsdag plaats. Alumni, studenten en medewerkers van de Universiteit Utrecht komen naar Utrecht en worden bijgepraat over actualiteiten in de wetenschap

Mariëtte de Haan, hoogleraar pedagogiek/onderwijskunde van de faculteit sociale wetenschappen, vertelt over de effecten van de kennisexplosie voor jongeren en het onderwijs.

,,Kinderen hebben nu online contact met andere jongeren, met alle mogelijke informatiebronnen in de wereld. Een soort alternatief van het aloude kopje thee na schooltijd of het rondhangen op straat. Opvoeders van nu kennen die wereld niet en kunnen de contacten niet controleren. Ouders waren altijd gewend om voor hun kinderen een beschermde wereld te creëren. Maar dat is niet langer haalbaar. Dat is de realiteit en daarmee moeten ouders leren leven.’’

Opgeven en meer informatie op www.uu.nl/udag en hier.

Added by KL.

Ben jij een gemotiveerde bachelorstudent van Marokkaanse komaf? Wil je onderzoekservaring opdoen in een vernieuwend onderzoek naar Internetgebruik? Lees dan snel verder en reageer!

Onderzoek naar actieve gebruikersgroepen digitale media
Uit wetenschappelijke literatuur blijkt dat jongeren van Marokkaanse komaf actieve gebruikers zijn van digitale media. Gesteld wordt wel dat deze populariteit te verklaren is omdat het internet de mogelijkheid biedt om nieuws, verhalen, informatie en filmpjes te vinden, die doorgaans niet in de mainstream media behandeld worden. De populariteit onder deze jongeren van sociale netwerk sites als MSN en Facebook, video-sites als YouTube maar ook van discussiesites als marokko.nl, yasmina.nl en maghreb.nl is zo te begrijpen. Het onderzoeksproject Wired Up doet hier onderzoek naar en wil het gebruik van internet door verschillende groepen jongeren, van 12-18 jaar, inzichtelijk maken.

Aanmelding en selectie
Heb je interesse, neem dan z.s.m. contact met ons op per email.

Contactgegevens: Koen Leurs, K.H.A.Leurs@uu.nl; of Mariëtte de Haan, M.deHaan@uu.nl

Klik hier om verder te lezen!

Added by KL.

Mix-In, Conference on diversity in higher education is organised by INHolland and VU University of Amsterdam and will take place March 22 and 23, 2010 in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

March 23 2010, 11.30-12.30
Diversity 2.0. Researching diversity in social network sites, games and the web.

In the on-line ‘2.0’ world diversity may no longer be the issue it used to be in material reality. Do social network sites, online games and the world of internet offer such a wide range of diversities that older power relations and inequalities can be rewritten? Or do we need more radical thinking about the digital world? Against this background the following papers will be presented. Gaming expert David Nieborg will briefly reflect on the issues raised. Lively discussion with all present is expected to follow.

• Chair: Floris Mueller (Erasmus Universiteit/Forum)
• Discussant: David Nieborg. (UvA)
• Koen Leurs (Universiteit Utrecht): Online networking sites as spaces of conviviality. Diversity and multiculturalism on Hyves
• Guan Ngo (INHolland): World of Warcraft. Rewriting diversity, a visual account.
• Geert Lovink (HvA/UvA): The digital given. Querying naïve belief in Web 2.0

Click here to go to the conference website.

Added by KL.

The 2010 conference of the American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL) will be held March 6 - 9 at the Sheraton Atlanta Hotel, Atlanta, GA. The 2010 AAAL conference will serve as a meeting place for applied linguists to generate ideas, cross disciplinary boundaries, and disseminate research about issues and concerns in language policy, second language acquisition, language pedagogy and assessment, discourse analysis and other areas of applied linguistics.

Kevin Leander and Mariëtte de Haan will participate in an invited colloquium entitled:

TECHNOLOGY AND LANGUAGE IN GLOBALIZED CONTEXTS: CRITICAL APPROACHES
Organizer: Eva Lam

Summary of colloquium:
The purpose of this colloquium is to critically examine the relationships between technology, language, and new communicational media within contexts shaped by processes of globalization. We explore these relationships with respect to issues of identity and representation, cultural hybridity and mobility, and education for a multicultural and multilingual citizenry.

The title of their contribution is:
Media use of Dutch immigrant youth: Learning and identity construction online
This presentation analyzes learning and identity practices among Dutch immigrant youth through the use of new media. Using online survey data, we examine online media productions, including how these are published, shared and evaluated by others, taking into account the transnational dimensions and geographical locations of these communication networks.

For more information on the colloquium, please click here.
For more information on the conference in general, please click here.

Added by KL.

Diversifying Participation. Digital Media and Learning conference

The Digital Media and Learning Conference is an annual event supported by the MacArthur Foundation and organized by the Digital Media and Learning Hub at University of California, Irvine. The conference is meant to be an inclusive, international and annual gathering of scholars and practitioners in the field, focused on fostering interdisciplinary and participatory dialog and linking theory, empirical study, policy, and practice.

For this inaugural year, the theme will be "Diversifying Participation". Henry Jenkins is the Conference Chair. The conference committee includes David Theo Goldberg, Heather Horst, Mimi Ito, Jabari Mahiri and Holly Willis.

Kevin participated in the session on Digital Media and Learning: The State of the Field

Location: Auditorium/Theater (Overflow)
Chair: Heather Horst (University of California, Irvine)
Discussion Moderator: Mimi Ito (University of California, Irvine)
Participants: Brigid Baron (Stanford University), Lynn Schofield Clark (University of Denver),
Eszter Hargittai (Northwestern University), Joseph Kahne (Mills College), Kevin Leander
(Vanderbilt University), Amanda Lenhart (Pew Internet and American Life Research
Center)

This invited symposium focused upon recently completed studies in the field of digital
media and learning. Bringing together qualitative and quantitative research, this
interactive session sought to understand what we know about youth, learning and digital
media with an eye to the key questions that will drive future research, theory and
practice. The format included short presentations by individual researchers, followed
by reflections upon key issues in education, learning and technology by panel
participants and audience members.

For more information, click here.
To download the conference program, click here (.pdf).

Added by KL.

Wired Up organized a meeting last wednesday 20.01.2010 and invited Niels van Doorn to discuss different angles and approaches to the study of gender and the Internet. Van Doorn presented his dissertation work on the performance of gender in weblogs, ICR-chat, social networking sites and video-sharing sites.

Added by KL.

'Participating in a mediated world' was a conference organized by the Platform for Communication, Media, and Information (CMI) within the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). The conference “Participating in a mediated world” aimed at bringing together junior and senior scholars from various backgrounds to get familiar with each other’s work; to learn from each other; and to discuss possibilities of future joint research efforts. It is the conviction of the CMI Platform that the opportunities and problems of participating in a mediated world can only be understood through the combination of different theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches. As a result, the CMI Platform invited communication scientists, media scholars, and information scientists to present their work at the conference. Presentations at the conference included empirical and theoretical work that were based both on research that has already been done and on work in progress. The conference consisted of paper presentations in the following 4 streams:

· Health and health promotion in a mediated world
· Political engagement and citizenship in a mediated world
· Cultural production and consumption in a mediated world
· Education and learning in a mediated world.

The Wired Up team presented two papers, one related to education and learning and one on the topic of cultural production and consumption.

PhD student Asli Ünlüsoy presented the paper she prepared with Wired Up staff members Mariëtte de Haan, Kevin Leander entitled: "Interfaces among new media, learning and socialization and the migrant".

PhD student Koen Leurs presented the paper he prepared with staff member Sandra Ponzanesi entitled: "Hypertextual selves. Patterns of production and consumption of Dutch Moroccan youth on Hyves"

The event took place November 27, 2009 at the KNAW, Trippenhuis, Kloveniersburgwal 29, Amsterdam.

For additional information, click here.
Click here to go to the CMI Platform website.

Added by KL.

DIASPORA, MIGRATION AND MEDIA SECTION - European Communication Research and Education Association Two-day workshop: Diasporas, Migration and Media: Crossing Boundaries, New Directions November 6-7 2009 Utrecht University, Netherlands. Co-hosted by Nottingham Trent University and Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece.

Studying the relationship between diasporas and the media presents several challenges and issues that are at the core of humanities, social sciences, anthropology, and cultural and media studies.
The aim of this workshop, then is to address the state-of-the-art in the field by inviting colleagues – academics, non-academics, researchers and PhD students - to map the diverse areas of investigation and/or present ongoing empirical and theoretical work that might offer a critique as well as point out new directions in the field.

The Wired Up team presented a paper called "At Home in the Web. The diasporic networks of migrant youth: learning and identity construction online".

To read the abstract, click here.
For additional information, click here.

Added by KL.

‘Occidentalism, Orientalism, and the idea of a postsecular Europe.’
9.30 - 19.00, Friday 30 October, 2009
Utrecht University, the Netherlands

The aim of this day-long workshop was to discuss from different intellectual traditions and perspectives the idea of Europe as an imagined and actual space. It explored in particular the relationship between ‘Occidentalism, Orientalism, and the idea of a postsecular Europe' by going beyond the reactionary notion of a threatened Europe, a notion on which some, unduly inflexible concepts of Occidentalism (e.g. as a ‘war on the West') depend. In moving beyond the ossified concepts of Occident and the Orient, the workshop aimed to clear a space to look at postcolonial Europe in terms of a non-binary understanding of European social, cultural and political forms.

In the morning the workshop engaged with the thinking of the prominent Jewish philosopher Avishai Margalit and of postcolonial scholar Paul Gilroy. In the afternoon cultural historian Luisa Passerini (Turin University, Italy) went in dialogue with continental philosopher Simon Glendinning. In the late afternoon speakers for the network and other invited guests presented their own vision on the suggested theme in the form of short papers and/or responses to the keynote addresses.

Organiser: Sandra Ponzanesi, staff Wired Up
(In collaboration with the Centre for the Humanities, the Graduate Gender Programme and the Institute for History and Culture, Utrecht University, NL)

Koen, phd student Wired Up, presented a paper called "Online social networking sites as spaces of conviviality? Dutch-Moroccan youth on Hyves" at this conference.

Abstract:
In this paper I want to explore to what extent online social networking sites can be understood as spaces of conviviality. Through typing, clicking, hypertextual linking, ‘friending’ and circulating texts and videos, social network site users produce social spaces and perform their individuality in the midst of the increasingly grim political and societal atmosphere of racialization and Islamophobia in the postcolonial centers of Fortress Europe. I will zoom in on expressions of diaspora and youth cultural affiliations of Dutch-Moroccan youth circulating in the Dutch social networking site Hyves. My inspiration stems from Paul Gilroy’s writing on youth cultures, diaspora and the notion of conviviality. First, Gilroy stated that youth cultures may offer potential for contesting “ethnic absolutism, racism and nationalism” (1993b) on the basis of their glocal, hybrid and transnational orientations. Second, in his work on the Black Atlantic, he discussed “the changing same”, illuminating the complex relationship “between ethnic sameness and differentiation” (1993a; xi). The “changing same” hints at diaspora identities as unfinished processes of becoming, at the crossroads of “roots” and “routes”. Finally, the term “conviviality” offers a way to grasp interactional processes that render “multiculture an ordinary feature of social life” (2004; xi). I want to see whether this vocabulary is helpful in achieving greater understanding of Dutch-Moroccan youth as content creators and circulators in hypermediated environments.

For additional information, click here.

Added by KL.

GLOCAL IMAGINARIES
WRITING / MIGRATION / PLACE

This is a conference taking place from 9 to 12 September in Lancaster University, and the Whitworth Gallery, Manchester, UK.

With an interest in both the material and imaginative (re) configuration of location, mobility and migration in the early twenty-first century, the conference invites papers from colleagues working in the fields of geography, sociology, anthropology, politics, linguistics and history, as well as literature and creative writing, and the conference will be 'streamed' in such a way that delegates are able to participate either within, or across, disciplines.

Koen will be presenting his paper called "Migrant Youth Writing G/local Hypertextual Selves across Diasporas and Youth Cultures" at this conference. There's a 'stream' of sessions on 'networked diasporas' in which Koen will participate.

Click here for more information.

Added by KL.

The Wired Up team is happy to announce that Asli Ünlüsoy has been hired as a PhD candidate for the Wired Up project "Learning and socialisation, new media and migrant youth".

Added by KL.

Wired Up team members participated in the EU Kids Online conference taking place Thursday June 11th 2009 at the London School of Economics and Political Science in the UK.

This concerned an international one-day conference for researchers, policy makers, industry, educators, NGOs and government to address the policy issues and research findings about children and the internet.

The conference focussed on European research on cultural, contextual and risk issues regarding children and the internet. It reported the final results and recommendations from three year’s work by the EU Kids Online network of 60 researchers in 21 countries funded by the EC Safer Internet plus Programme. It showcased the latest current research in Europe and Worldwide.

Added by KL.

Wired Up team members Sandra Ponzanesi and Koen Leurs will be participating in the 7th European Feminist Research Conference. This conference, entitled "Gendered Cultures at the Crossroads of Imagination, Knowledge and Politics" will be taking place from June 04 until June 07 at Utrecht University.

Sandra Ponzanesi will be the referent for a keynote speech that will be deliverd by Prof. dr. Anne McClintock on "Paranoid Empire: Specters Beyond Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib", Thursday, 04 June 2009 from 5.15 pm onwards in room Theatron. Also she will chair a session on "Cyberspace and gender", Saturday, 06 June 2009 at 9.00 am in Room C (Ruppert Building) and a session on the same day on "What is left of National Identities? European Perspectives on Migration and the Cultural Consumption of Alterity" from 2.45 pm in Room 033 (Ruppert Building).

In a session on "Cyberspace and gender", Koen Leurs will be presenting his paper entitled "Migrant youth & online hypertext: multiple modes of becoming/belonging", Saturday, 06 June 2009 at 9.00 am in Room C (Ruppert Building). Also on this day, he will chair a session on "Migration and Representation", from 4.30 pm in Room 114 (Ruppert Building).

Added by KL.

Wired Up team member Koen Leurs will be presenting his paper entitled "Be(com)ing cyber Mocro's. Digital media, migration and glocalized youth cultures" at the Race, Ethnicity and (New) Media symposium held at the Race & Ethnic Studies Insitute, Texas A&M University. This symposium is taking place from April 30 until May 2, 2009.

Abstract:
In this paper an attempt is made to unravel processes of online identification by looking at circulated pictures and created hyperlinks. The practices found online display an ongoing construction of heterogeneous and differential selves - that operate beyond the binary of global and local contexts - as they emphasize different loyalties and affiliations. Dutch-Moroccan youth were shown to make the Internet a Mocro place, by claiming a space where they can be Mocro and perform being Mocro. This concerns a bottom-up construction of ethnicity through the consumption and production of imageries and links that are often not either global or local but both. The examples explored in this paper draw our attention to the discontinuous, localized and unpredictable ways of how circulating cultural resources are creatively put in use by migrant youth. What we get from the graphical narratives of self – the user-generated avatars uploaded online - is that there are many imagined, instable dimensions shaping the cultural identification of Dutch-Moroccan youth.

Added by KL.

In Dutch: Kind van nu neemt rol volwassene over

Door globalisering en toenemend mediagebruik, leven kinderen in een grotere wereld dan hun ouders. Daardoor neemt het kind soms de rol van volwassene over. Dit betoogt prof.dr. Mariëtte de Haan, bijzonder hoogleraar Sociale en affectieve vorming van jeugdigen, in haar oratie op vrijdag 27 februari: ‘Opvoeden in een veranderende wereld’. Het idee dat een kind in een stabiele, in te richten wereld leeft die de opvoeder kan controleren, bestaat volgens De Haan niet meer. Dit geldt ook voor internetgedrag van kinderen.

Read full Utrecht University press report (in Dutch)
For more pictures, click here.

Academiegebouw, Utrecht University

Celebrations at the Winkel van Sinkel, Utrecht.

Added by KL.

27 februari 2009, 16:15 uur
Locatie: Academiegebouw, Domplein 29, Utrecht

In Dutch:
Op vrijdag 27 februari houdt prof.dr M. de Haan een oratie over opvoeden in een tijd van toegenomen migratie en intensief gebruk van nieuwe media.

Cultuuroverdracht in een wereld in beweging
Hoe wordt cultuuroverdracht beïnvloed door toegenomen migratie en intensief gebruik van nieuwe media? Mariëtte de Haan gaat in haar oratie na wat de implicaties zijn van het feit dat er bij de digitale generatie sprake is van een toegenomen connectiviteit (interlokaal maar ook transnationaal) en een verhoogd contact met sociale werelden op afstand. Verschillen de referentiewerelden van ouders en kinderen hierdoor te veel om de opvoeding effectief te laten zijn? Of moeten we juist onze hoop stellen op de ‘connected family' die juist door de mobiele communicatie zijn activiteiten synchroniseert? De Haan gaat in bredere zin in op het probleem van culturele reproductie in een wereld in beweging, waarbij zij zowel ingaat op de opvoeding in migrantengezinnen als op de opvoeding in middenklassegezinnen als gevolg van het digitale tijdperk.

Added by KL.

Wired Up attended the Association of Internet Researchers (AOIR) "Internet Research 9.0 Conference. Rethinking Community, Rethinking Place". This conference took place from October 16-18 at the IT University in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Added by KL.

Wired Up attended the London School of Economics and Political Science fifth anniversary conference "Media, Communication and Humanity". This conference took place from September 21st-23rd in London, United Kingdom.

Added by KL.

Wired Up attended the KNAW-symposium "Identity in Virtual Worlds", held September 18 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Added by KL.

A number of Wired Up team members, dr. Kevin Leander, prof. dr. Mariëtte de Haan, Nina ter Laan and Koen Leurs, attended the International Society for Cultural and Activity Research (ISCAR) 2008 conference "Ecologies of Diversities. The developmental and historical interarticulation of human mediational forms" in San Diego at the University of California, San Diego and the University of San Diego from September 8 - 13, 2008.
The Wired Up team participated in the symposium "Youth Migrants and Digital Literacies in Transnational Contexts” together with Eva Lam (assistant professor Northwestern University), Lisa Patel Stevens (assistent professor Lynch school of Education, Boston College), Rebecca W. Black (Assistant Professor in the Department of Education at the University of California, Irvine). Additionally, Nina ter Laan and Koen Leurs held a poster presentation.

Kevin Leander introducing the conceptual approaches of Wired Up,
in the symposium "Youth Migrants and Digital Literacies in Transnational Contexts”.


Nina ter Laan and Koen Leurs held a poster presentation entitled:
"Migrant youth, cyberspace & 'the well' of transnational symbolic vocabulary".
Download the poster here (.pdf, 736 kb).

Mariette de Haan, Nina ter Laan, Koen Leurs and Kevin Leander.
Picture taken at the UCSD Birch Acquarium.

Added by KL.

Several Wired Up team members (prof. dr. Mariëtte de Haan, Marieke Slootman and Koen Leurs) attended the International Conference for the learning science (ICLS) 2008 conference "International Perspectives in the Learning Sciences. Cre8ing a learning world" held from June 23 - June 28 at the Utrecht University Uithof campus.

Added by KL.

Today, June 15, 2008, the new Wired Up website was published online. Feel free to navigate our contents. From today onwards, the site will be updated regularly with work-in-progress papers, talks etcetera.

Any comments and suggestions are welcome, see the "contact" header for more details.

Wired Up Staff members:
Porf. dr M.J. de Haan (UU, Social Sciences) Dr S. Ponzanesi (UU, Humanities)
Dr K.M. Leander (International Partner, Education and Human Development)

Added by KL.