Summary of 1st Presentation - Self.info I: Identity
As Adrian Holiday pointed out that we all have a multiplicity of identities, people have more than one identities. All identities are imposed by society and stereotyped.
Undoubtedly, online communities provide a good platform for genderless, classless and raceless at the beginning. Since, “On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog.” Also, you can create your ideal identities. Therefore, physically, you can hide your identities.
However, it is limited to physically. The theory of race also told us the idea of race is rooted in our mind. For example, Black is always related to crime and White is related to higher social class. So, when we map someone into a certain race, it alters our behavior. People still determine others by their language, grammar and their accent. Those profiles from online communities become text to interpret their identities. So, when we can distinguish others' identity, it back to the starting point of discrimination.
Therefore, the first part would like to discuss whether cyberspace is a good place for racial and ethnic group or not.
For the second part of our presentation, we use 2 examples, JenniCAM and Wretch (a famous Web-Photo-Album in Taiwan) to explain Donna Haraway’s cyborg theory.
Under the cyborg theory both examples confused the dichotomous boundaries, such as body/machine, subject/object, private/public, and move beyond the limitations of traditional gender and feminism. Things cannot be clearly distinguished nowadays, there is no more black “OR” white, but black “AND” white.
So this leads out an interesting question, which is as we know that identity formation is by drawing clear (dichotomous) boundaries. However, when those boundaries are being confused and cannot be clearly distinguished, so is identity as important as before? Or how identity should be constructed in nowadays?
By
Cheng Hoi Yan, Cindy
Cheung Ho Yan, Tracy
Well Done!!!!
ReplyDeleteIt is an interseting discussion. People always tend to interact with someone who has similar cultural background. It is no doubt that cyberspace is a good place since it has provided a platform for people communicate with the others who may have different races or backgrounds. As there are racial stereotypes in real life, people may refuse to intercourse with particular ethnic groups due to negative imaginations. However, the emergence of cyberspace offers the opportunities for various people to interact as they can choose to hide their identities and some just want to share with those who have the same interest. They would not care about identities. It makes a breakthrough of racial barrier. In the meanwhile, the racial identity is blurred in cyberspace. The race is a major constituent to construct one’s identity in the society, but in cyberspace, it seems the ethnic identity is not as important as in the real life.
ReplyDelete