Technicolor: Race, Technology, and Everyday Life [Paperback]

Thuy Linh N. Tu (Editor), Alondra Nelson (Editor), Alicia Hedlam Hines (Contributor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0814736041 | ISBN-13: 978-0814736043 | Publication Date: March 1, 2001

The cultural impact of new information and communication technologies has been a constant topic of debate, but questions of race and ethnicity remain a critical absence. Technicolor fills this gap by exploring the relationship between race and technology.

From Indian H-1B Workers and Detroit techno music to karaoke and the Chicano interneta, Technicolor's specific case studies document the ways in which people of color actually use technology. The results rupture such racial stereotypes as Asian whiz-kids and Black and Latino techno-phobes, while fundamentally challenging many widely-held theoretical and political assumptions.

Incorporating a broader definition of technology and technological practices--to include not only those technologies thought to create "revolutions" (computer hardware and software) but also cars, cellular phones, and other everyday technologies--Technicolor reflects the larger history of technology use by people of color.

Contributors: Vivek Bald, Ben Chappell, Beth Coleman, McLean Greaves, Logan Hill, Alicia Headlam Hines, Karen Hossfeld, Amitava Kumar, Casey Man Kong Lum, Alondra Nelson, Mimi Nguyen, Guillermo Goméz-Peña, Tricia Rose, Andrew Ross, Thuy Linh Nguyen Tu, and Ben Williams.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"New York's South Asian cabbies probably had no idea they were straddling the digital divide when they used their own CB channels to organize surprise strikes and demonstrations. But in Technicolor: Race, Technology, and Everyday Life, the editors bring together a series of essays that broaden the concept far beyond the borders of your average two-part Times series."
--New York Magazine

"will prompt new conversations...[and] serve as an important foundation for subsequent inquiry into the articulations of technology and race"
--C. Richard King, Washington State University

"The essays in Technicolor are revolutionary... they encourage the reader to consider the material possibilities of cyberspace for people of color"
--Andre Brock, University of Iowa

"broaden[s] the scope of recent scholarship on technology and culture in important ways"
--Josephine Lee, University of Minnesota, Journal of Asian Studies

"What is revealed? Powerful visions, future-fantasies that as science fiction writer Nalo Hopkinson would argue, 'can make the impossible, possible'"
--Resource Center for CyberCulture Studies

About the Author

Alondra Nelson is a doctoral candidate in the American Studies Program at New York University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: NYU Press (March 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0814736041
• ISBN-13: 978-0814736043
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,105,497 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Alondra Nelson teaches sociology and gender studies at Columbia University. She is author of "Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight Against Medical Discrimination." She is also an editor of "Genetics and the Unsettled Past: The Collision of DNA, Race, and History;" "Technicolor: Race, Technology and Everyday Life;" and "Afrofuturism" (a special issue of Social Text). Her essays, reviews and commentary have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, Dissent, the Guardian and the Chronicle of Higher Education, among other publications. She is currently writing a book about racial politics and "the social life of DNA." For more, please see www.alondranelson.com and follow BODY and SOUL on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bodyandsoulnelson