Eduarda Ferreira

Lesbian collaborative web mapping: disrupting heteronormativity in Portugal

Public spaces are constructed around hidden, subtle, non-verbalized and implicit codes of behaviour. These hidden and implicit codes of behaviour are pervasive heteronormative expressions that inscribe socio-spatial landscapes. As a consequence, same-sex public displays of affection are modified, or entirely absent. In the Portuguese sociocultural context public displays of heterosexual and familial affection are common, which prompted us to research how lesbians and bisexual women negotiate same-sex displays of affection in public spaces. The article begins by examining: the co-production of space, gender and sexualities; the pervasive invisibility of lesbian sexualities in public spaces; and the potentialities of participatory geospatial web that connects geographic location to photographs, text and other media shared online. The second half of the article presents the research project ‘Creating Landscapes’. It is argued that a collaboratively created web map by lesbians with positive public space experiences may promote agency and empowerment for lesbian and bisexual women. The article concludes by arguing that creating and sharing collaborative web maps of positive experiences of same-sex public displays of affection can disrupt heteronormativity and create public spaces that are empowering for lesbians and bisexual women.

Portuguese research on gender and ICT: The place of education

ICT/technologies are increasingly pervasive and embedded in everyday things and objects, constituting a relevant aspect of social identities. Furthermore ICT use continues to be a highly gendered area of life in all socio-economic and educational backgrounds, and a source of significant social inequality in enduring ways. Gender and ICT/technologies is an international growing field of research that explores diverse research issues, and the main objective of this paper is to characterize the Portuguese research on this topic, identifying the main areas of study and possible gaps. By analyzing institutional repositories of Higher Education in Portugal, conferences and journals on ICT and Education, this paper concludes that research on gender and ICT/technologies in Portugal is very limited and mainly on subjects related with education and occupation/jobs. To finalize the paper presents future research topics to foster knowledge on gender and ICT/technologies in Portugal.

Mind the Gap: Digital Practices and School

Digital practices are pervasive in the everyday lives of young people. However, to be emerged in digital networked practices does not inherently provide competences to critically examine media and online content. Formal learning could profit from young peoples interests and enthusiasm in informal learning contexts, bridging the gap between formal learning and everyday digital practices. The school has an urgent and decisive role to promote digital literacies and to prepare young people to adapt to a changing world. This paper presents results from the project Net Children Go Mobile in Portugal to analyze the gap between digital practices and school. The digital gap between the culture of the school and the culture of childrens lives outside school is not just about having more access to technology or more ICT training, it is essentially about having the competence of using critical thinking and a diverse set of skills in digital practices.

De-Centring Western Sexualities: Central and Eastern European Perspectives

repetition and revision: ‘Mama is not in mama. She has been replaced. I myself am decomposed. She hasn’t been replaced’ (p. 6). This illuminating focalisation is augmented by the bodies implied in certain linguistic choices. Short sentences suggest the choked expression of words through tears; long sentences postpone the cipher of death: silence. Most haunting are the chairs that recur throughout the book, innocuous domestic objects representing lost, though much-loved, people: ‘Raffia’ (p. 22), the ‘Impossible Armchair’ (p. 50), ‘the third rattan chair on which last summer she [Éri, Ève’s sister] left her paradoxical silhouette’ (p. 77). Indeed, the equivalence sees the chairs themselves as bodies, as when Raffia collapses in a ‘splinter of bone wrenched from the left shoulder [ . . . ] Legs disjointed, pelvis cracked’ (p. 23). Such metonymy in fact powers much of the gentle humour with which Cixous depicts the failure of the body: ‘teeth’ pass the night in a jar, ‘ears’ are to be attached at will. Brahic’s translation is attentively performed, with care taken to expose Cixous’ tendency to combine meanings. For instance, the delicate phrasing of ‘Summers I live on my mother shore, au bord de ma mère’ (p. 54) highlights the pun of ‘mère’ as both mother and sea. The endnotes, gathered unnumbered to avoid intrusive textual interruptions, enrich the translation with further detail and discussion, and are especially useful for highlighting Cixous’ use of English in her original text. In a brief discursive section, Brahic comments on fertile ground for future research and relevant further reading. Her many stated pleasures in accompanying Hemlock from French to English demonstrate her sensitivity to Cixous’ project and voice. Some of the book’s specific relevance to gender studies is inevitably compromised in translation, however, as the French gendering of nouns on which Cixous so often plays is lost. Indeed, Brahic admits: ‘Cixous’ polysemy, her wit, her plays on and coinages of words [ . . . ] render her work, at some – indeed, many – levels untranslatable’ (p. 169). For instance, Brahic highlights the French ‘maman’, variously translatable as ‘mama, mum, mom, moomma’ (p. 175). Yet this limitation in itself contains valuable commentary on the interactions between and specificities of places and cultures, by illuminating the losses and gains of a text in translation.