NYU Press TechniColor: Race, Technology, and Everyday Life

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. 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"Technicolor is at once heroic and tragic: an anthology that will prompt new conversations."--Richard King, Washington State University"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 Synopsis This text explores the relationship between race and technology. From Indian H-1B workers and Detroit techno music to karaoke and the Chicano interneta, this book uses case studies to document the use of technology - rupturing stereotypes such as Asian whizz kids and black technophobes. About the Author Alondra Nelson is president of the Social Science Research Council and Harold F. Linder Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study. A leading scholar of science, technology, and social inequality, she is the author most recently of The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation after the Genome. Her publications also include Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight against Medical Discrimination; Genetics and the Unsettled Past: The Collision of DNA, Race, and History; and Technicolor: Race, Technology, and Everyday Life. Thuy Linh Nguyen Tu is Associate Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis at NYU. She is the author of The Beautiful Generation; Asian Americans and the Cultural Economy of Fashion (2011) and of the forthcoming Experiments in Skin: Making Race and Beauty Across the Pacific. Alicia Headlam Hines teaches Literature and Language Arts at the Horace Mann School in Riverdale, New York.