.
'Internet Histories'
a pre-AoIR 8.0 workshop
October 16, 2007
Vancouver, Canada

Despite the fact that the Internet is entering its fifth decade, the
understanding and writing of its histories is very much in its infancy.
In this one-day workshop, to be held 16 October 2007 directly before the
Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) 8.0 conference
(http://conferences.aoir.org), we aim to explore the questions,
assumptions, investments, frameworks, concepts, methods, biases,
opportunities, archives, narratives, tropes, and logics that underlie
the Internet’s diverse histories.

In particular, in the spirit of our 2006 ‘Internationalising Internet
Studies’ workshop
(http://www.capstrans.edu.au/resources/conferences/2006/ 
conferences-2006-inet-studies.html),
we start from the notion that the history of Internet uptake has been
widely divergent across cultures and regions. In Asia, in particular,
the initial PC-based phase of connectivity typical of the US and Europe,
has not been replicated. Instead, Internet penetration was achieved via
a variety of mobile devices, including Internet-enabled cell phones
resulting in very different cultures of use and practice.

Accordingly, we call for papers on Internet histories, including, but
certainly not limited to the following issues:

• what sorts of Internet histories are currently available, or in
progress — whether national, country-specific, local, subcultural,
community, or transnational and translocal?
• what are the histories and trajectories currently missing and why do
these particular lacunae exist? What histories of the Internet are being
foreclosed, overlooked, or not yet imagined, and what are the
implications of this?
• who is currently writing, reading, collecting, valorising, or even
enshrining Internet histories?
• what are the dominant accounts of Internet history, or dominant
assumptions regarding these?
• what histories do we have of Latin American, African, Oceanic, or
Asian Internet, for instance, compared to European or North American
Internet?
• what challenges does doing Internet history pose? what is specific
about Internet history compared to histories of media, communications,
or other technologies, or broad social or cultural histories?
• how do our understandings of Internet and mobile technologies and
cultures vary depending on the kinds of quite specific histories that
condition these?
• how do a researcher’s own culture and patterns of use determine the
kinds of questions s/he may raise concerning the history of ‘the  
Internet’?

This project brings together researchers working on country-specific and
regional histories of the Internet as well as those researching Internet
use by local and transnational subcultures and communities. This will be
the first of what is anticipated to be a series of workshops, leading to
an edited collection aimed at understanding the different historical
patterns of Internet deployment and cultural and technological  
development.

We welcome abstracts of no more than 500 words by Monday 16 April 2007.
Please send your abstract to both organisers: Gerard Goggin
([log in to unmask]) and Mark McLelland ([log in to unmask]).

Acceptance will be advised by the end of April 2007. Subsequent to
acceptance, presenters will need to register for the workshop and the
AoIR conference via the AoIR online conference registration system.
Please note that acceptance of your paper at the pre-conference workshop
does not preclude you from also submitting a different paper to the main
conference.

For those selected, papers of 5,000 words will be due by mid-September
2007. Following the workshop, papers will be considered for inclusion in
an edited collection on Internet Histories.

The project website is:
http://www.capstrans.edu.au/resources/events/2007/inet-histories/

About the organisers:

Gerard Goggin is an ARC Australian Research Fellow in the Dept of Media
and Communications, University of Sydney, Australia. His books include
Cell Phone Culture (Routledge, 2006), Virtual Nation: The Internet in
Australia (2004), and Digital Disability (Rowman & Littlefield, 2003),
and he is currently working on a study of global mobile media.

Mark McLelland lectures in Sociology in the School of Social Sciences,
Media and Communications at the University of Wollongong. His
publications include Japanese Cybercultures (2000) and Queer Japan from
the Pacific War to the Internet Age (2005).

Gerard and Mark are editors of Internationalizing Internet Studies
(Routledge, 2007).

-- 
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

Dr Gerard Goggin
ARC Australian Research Fellow
Editor, 'Media International Australia'
Department of Media and Communications
The University of Sydney
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
p: +61 2 9036 6424  f: 61 2 9351 5444
http://www.arts.usyd.edu.au/departs/media/?page=staff&id=gerard.goggin