Digitalised Emancipation?
Digital Distraction, Patriarchy and Rural [Distracted] Women’s Experience of Facebook[ing]
Project Background
This project explores the biographical ramifications of the increasing social media (SM) activity – Facebook[ing], among rural Sri Lankan women. The recent influx of Facebook[ing] is a novel experience for rural individuals that generates profound changes in their customary lifestyle. Much of the current research focuses on the impact of SM on the social organisation of advanced societies, neglecting the global periphery, and particularly the biographical consequences of SM on rural women, whose life and occupational circumstances are strongly shaped by patriarchy. The study analyses 26 biographies of rural Sri Lankan women through the conceptual lenses of reflexivity and digital distraction underpinned by a critical realist analytic framework and contributes in theorising the biographical and occupational consequences of SM among rural women living in the global periphery.
Research Questions
How do rural Sri Lankan women negotiate the manifestations of patriarchy in their SM – Facebook(ing) - activity?
Project Lead
Funding
Internal Research Grant