Technologies of Migration: Asia, Media, Mobility, and Virtuality

Here's a really cool call that has gone out for the Technologies of Migration conference in Champaign, Illinois April 21-22, 2011.

Confirmed speakers: Rhacel Parrenas, Aneesh Aneesh, Cara Wallis, Lisa Nakamura, Josephine Lee

The 21st century has seen a mass migration of workers leaving Asia to live and work in the U.S. and elsewhere. Increasingly, digital media are functioning as essential platforms for Asian and other types of migration. Communication technologies such as mobile phones, online banking and remittance services, video sharing services, digital games, and VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) services such as Skype help workers learn about work and keep in touch with families abroad. And as virtual world games such as World of Warcraft become more globally popular, these digital media become themselves a virtual workplace.

Migration from Asia to the US and return migration from the U.S. to Asia would not occur in the same way were it not for these new platforms and forms of mediation Increasingly, media such as film, television, and literature play an important role in encouraging Asian users to migrate or re-migrate by representing the pleasures, risks, and fears of re-location.

"Technologies of Asian Migration: Media, Mobility, and Virtuality" that will feature experts on the traffic in digital labor, domestic labor, media practices and texts between Asia and America. The technologies that enable this form of traffic and cultural exchange and disapora distributes Asian bodies and representations of Asia all around the world. Many of these technologies such as the Internet, digital games, old and new media, and cellphones are relatively new and understudied. This conference will examine the role that Information and Communication Technologies (ICT's) play in all forms of migration and re-migration between Asia and the Americas.

Call for Proposals for Technologies of Migration conference

This is a free conference for presenters and for attendees. We are particularly interested in giving graduate students a venue to present their work. If you wish to present a 20 minute paper, please send a proposal consisting of:
1>. your title
2>. a 200 word abstract
3>. a 50 word biodata
to yang140@illinois.edu by January 1, 2011.

We welcome presentations on topics such as Migration, Asia, and the Internet, Media Platforms for Asian/American Migration: Literature, Film, and Television, Mobile Media, Mobile Identities, Virtual Migration, Asia, and Digital Games, and Gender, SE Asia, and Technologies of Labor Migration, or related topics.

There's still time.

For more information, please consult the website>>

Thanks to Otherwise (Judy Han) for the fwd!

Born digital, grown digital

Thought this would be a valuable resource for those interested in the European gaming scene: it's a report that has just come out (in PDF form in the link), titled:

"Born digital, Grown digital: the European Videogames industry" (2010). G. De Prato, C. Feijóo, D. Nepelski, M. Bogdanowicz, J.P. Simon

The broader COMPLETE study is on the Information, Society, and Policy Research Unit page of the European Commission Joint Research Centre, Institute for Prospective Technological Studies website and more information can be found here>>

It's sometimes hard to believe it's the last month of my stay here in the Netherlands. Much of it, heads down when not running around.

Digital Voice Recorders - Recommendations for an ethnographer?

My digital voice recorder has died, and I am glad for it. It unfortunately used a proprietary format for recording,and while it created a high-quality, memory-efficient recording--it was ultimately AGONY waiting for it to convert its files to a WAV file (of all things). That, and the software (once you lose the 3 year old CD... come on, we've all done it) is difficult to find online, and once you find it, it -might- be available for a price. Sound familiar? It's lame, and the forums agree... with many users ditching recorders that do such short-sighted, ill-advised things. It's enough to drive me back to mini tapes. Well, maybe not quite.

Having learned from previous frustrations with the now dead recorder, this is what I would want my next recorder to have:

1. Good background noise filtering (probably in the form of different speech settings)
2. NOT proprietary format that requires special software in order to play recording on a computer or anywhere else.
3. Preferably records in MP3 format
4. Memory-efficient
5. Feedback on successful recording (flickring LCD bar, or LED will do).

So far, my experiences with consumer reviews and forums do not adequately address these specific concerns, nor are they targeted to my particular needs. They are also not the most up to date.

Anyway, it's time to move on and move up. So I am looking around and researching what to get as my faithful fieldwork companion. I'm soliciting recommendations from people who regularly do field interviews (ethnographers, journalists,and others of similar ilk) who are familiar with the conditions in which such interviews are conducted, and later processed. If you're like me, that processing will take place on a laptop, in a tiny room, in unfamiliar conditions.

There's got to be a better option than just using 'record' on my MP3 player... or is there?

Comments?