ICS Seminar Series

Event Name
ICS Seminar Series
Date
22 July 2021
Time
11:30 am - 01:00 pm
Location
Online

Address (Room): This seminar will be hosted online via Zoom. Please RSVP to e.blight@westernsydney.edu.au, by 21 July 5:00pm, to receive the Zoom details.

Description

Presenter: Professor Jack Linchuan Qiu Discussant: Professor Heather Horst Abstract Posthuman is a social condition of humans losing control, especially to technological forces, and a mode of thinking beyond the Anthropocene and enlightenment modernity. Building on the posthuman critique, this talk examines digital labor and food delivery platforms during Covid-19 in Asian contexts (Singapore, Hong Kong, Mainland China, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines). The main argument is that, while reinforcing inequalities through algorithmic forms of discrimination and social control, the pandemic also creates openings for progressive change — towards the humanising of the posthuman, and towards the construction of the “new human”. As such, Covid-19 is more than a crisis that signifies the end of the “old normal”. It is more importantly another moment when existential crisis triggers innovation in working-class network society, leading in this case to novel discourses, practices, and networks of the “new human”. How and why did this happen? What are the implications for digital economies and cultures in Asia and the world? These questions will be discussed. Please RSVP to e.blight@westernsydney.edu.au, by 21 July 5:00pm, to receive the Zoom details.

Web page: https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/ics/events/ics_seminar_series

Contact
Name: Elise Blight

e.blight@westernsydney.edu.au