Ganaele M. Langlois
Department of Communication & Media Studies
Associate Professor
Chair
Office: Victor Phillip Dahdaleh (DB) Building, 3019
Phone: 4167362100 Ext: 70559
Email: comchair@yorku.ca
Ganaele Langlois' research interests lie in critical perspective on digital technocultures.
Ganaele Langlois is Associate Professor in Communication studies at York University, Canada, and Associate Director of the Infoscape Centre for the Study of Social Media (www.infoscapelab.ca). Her research interests lie in media theory and critical theory, particularly with regards to the shaping of subjectivity and agency through and with media technologies. She published a book entitled Meaning in the Age of Social Media (Palgrave, 2014). She has co-edited a book on the topic entitled Compromised Data? From Social Media to Big Data (Bloomsbury, 2015). She has co-edited a series of special issues on the Canadian alt-rights for the Canadian Journal of Communication (21-22) with co-editor Natalie Coulter, Greg Elmer and Fenwick McKelvey. As co-principal investigator, she also researches mis- and dis-information through the SSHRC-funded "Beyond Verification" and Mellon-funded "Data Fluencies" project (PI: Wendy Chun).
She is currently working on a research project about textile as communication, for which she received a SSHRC Insight Development Grant and Ontario Arts Council Grant.
Her research has been published in New Media and Society, Culture Machine, Communication and Critical-Cultural Studies, Television and New Media, and Fibreculture, among others.
Degrees
PhD, York/Ryerson UniversitiesMA, York/Ryerson Universities
Maîtrise, Sorbonne - Paris IV
Research Interests
Current Research Projects
-
Summary:
Communication Beyond Words: Textile and Social Change explores the potential of textile as a universal medium of communication capable of addressing systemic global inequalities.
Description:Textile is not often mentioned in communication and media studies. Yet, it was a global medium of communication from prehistoric times up until 19th century industrialization. Today still, individuals gather together to stitch, knit or make quilts that record and enact cultural values and collective ways of living. In many indigenous communities around the world, textile techniques such as embroidery or beading are still practiced as media of communication of similar importance as the verbal word in the West.
First, the project first explores the reasons for such under-appreciation of textile in communication and media studies, including the western-centric bias that sees technologies such as the ones involved in handcrafted textile as lesser than western-based, contemporary ones. To demonstrate this, the project examines the connections between a long and complex tradition of making informational textile to record information in many communities worldwide, and contemporary digital technologies.
Second, the project examines how traditionally textile transmitted and enacted ways of life, most often through means that had the same effect as story-telling, but did not particularly rely on words or symbolic images. Making, embellishing, exchanging and propagating patterned textile have long fostered and transmitted cultural identities and values, and built inter-cultural dialogues. The project examines how contemporary textile practices invent and renew ways of life by focusing on the negotiations between indigenous groups, local artisans, designers, available materials, and socio-economic pressures.
Third, the project argues that while textile crafts might seem quaint today, they provide the critical means to address systemic global inequalities such as cultural appropriation, environmental degradation, wage disparities between designers and artisans, and socio-economic pressures on indigenous and local communities. Through two pilot studies of textile collaboration between indigenous communities, local artisans and Canadian-based artists and designers in Peru and Pakistan, the project showcases how both traditional and new textile practices can produce new intercultural understandings and ways of being together. These in turn challenge existing global inequalities and forge new alliances that transcend language and socio-economic barriers.
Start Date:
- Month: Jul Year: 2018
End Date:
- Month: Jun Year: 2020
Start Date:
- Month: May Year: 2012
End Date:
- Month: Dec Year: 2017
Funders:
SSHRC
Ganaele Langlois' research interests lie in critical perspective on digital technocultures.
Ganaele Langlois is Associate Professor in Communication studies at York University, Canada, and Associate Director of the Infoscape Centre for the Study of Social Media (www.infoscapelab.ca). Her research interests lie in media theory and critical theory, particularly with regards to the shaping of subjectivity and agency through and with media technologies. She published a book entitled Meaning in the Age of Social Media (Palgrave, 2014). She has co-edited a book on the topic entitled Compromised Data? From Social Media to Big Data (Bloomsbury, 2015). She has co-edited a series of special issues on the Canadian alt-rights for the Canadian Journal of Communication (21-22) with co-editor Natalie Coulter, Greg Elmer and Fenwick McKelvey. As co-principal investigator, she also researches mis- and dis-information through the SSHRC-funded "Beyond Verification" and Mellon-funded "Data Fluencies" project (PI: Wendy Chun).
She is currently working on a research project about textile as communication, for which she received a SSHRC Insight Development Grant and Ontario Arts Council Grant.
Her research has been published in New Media and Society, Culture Machine, Communication and Critical-Cultural Studies, Television and New Media, and Fibreculture, among others.
Degrees
PhD, York/Ryerson UniversitiesMA, York/Ryerson Universities
Maîtrise, Sorbonne - Paris IV
Research Interests
Current Research Projects
-
Summary:
Communication Beyond Words: Textile and Social Change explores the potential of textile as a universal medium of communication capable of addressing systemic global inequalities.
Description:Textile is not often mentioned in communication and media studies. Yet, it was a global medium of communication from prehistoric times up until 19th century industrialization. Today still, individuals gather together to stitch, knit or make quilts that record and enact cultural values and collective ways of living. In many indigenous communities around the world, textile techniques such as embroidery or beading are still practiced as media of communication of similar importance as the verbal word in the West.
First, the project first explores the reasons for such under-appreciation of textile in communication and media studies, including the western-centric bias that sees technologies such as the ones involved in handcrafted textile as lesser than western-based, contemporary ones. To demonstrate this, the project examines the connections between a long and complex tradition of making informational textile to record information in many communities worldwide, and contemporary digital technologies.
Second, the project examines how traditionally textile transmitted and enacted ways of life, most often through means that had the same effect as story-telling, but did not particularly rely on words or symbolic images. Making, embellishing, exchanging and propagating patterned textile have long fostered and transmitted cultural identities and values, and built inter-cultural dialogues. The project examines how contemporary textile practices invent and renew ways of life by focusing on the negotiations between indigenous groups, local artisans, designers, available materials, and socio-economic pressures.
Third, the project argues that while textile crafts might seem quaint today, they provide the critical means to address systemic global inequalities such as cultural appropriation, environmental degradation, wage disparities between designers and artisans, and socio-economic pressures on indigenous and local communities. Through two pilot studies of textile collaboration between indigenous communities, local artisans and Canadian-based artists and designers in Peru and Pakistan, the project showcases how both traditional and new textile practices can produce new intercultural understandings and ways of being together. These in turn challenge existing global inequalities and forge new alliances that transcend language and socio-economic barriers.
Project Type: Self-FundedRole: Principal Investigator
Start Date:
- Month: Jul Year: 2018
End Date:
- Month: Jun Year: 2020
-
Project Type:
Funded
Role: Co-Principal Investigator
Start Date:
- Month: May Year: 2012
End Date:
- Month: Dec Year: 2017
Funders:
SSHRC
