While 2018 takes its last breath, we present the third edition of our Queer-Feminist Science and Technology Studies Forum, in which we aimed at ‘queering diversity’ and searched for the queer and the class in academia and research. Our idea behind this issue was to take a closer look at the – supposed – gap between diversity policies and actual practices.
We have four exciting contributions: Claudia Chiang-Lopez from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, critically discusses the various hegemonic interpretations of students leaving/being pushed out of secondary and tertiary education. Daniela Zanini-Freitag, member of our Queer STS working group, held with Jay Pongruengphant, the current UNDP national officer on Governance, Human Rights and LGBTI of the Being LGBTI in Asia programme. Tessa Leach critically examines the sexbot inherent conflict of neoliberal commodification of women’s bodies and the fear of objectification and violence of some feminist discourses and is also a teaser for next year’s fourth issue of our Queer STS Forum which will be discussing “Queer-feminist perspectives on sex robots” (CfP here!).The fourth and final contribution is a conversational interview between Daniela Jauk, co-editor and member of our Queer STS working group and Reni Hofmüller who is a multidimensional queer-feminist artist, art organizer, media maker, DIY tech activist, educator, and so much more.
Enjoy and happy, queer-feminist 2019!