Black Girls Swim

01/24/22 • 37 min

Ongoing debates about how digital technologies impact children’s health and well-being often frame sports as the opposite or even antidote to sedentary screen time. For centuries, children’s sports have served as a symbol of a “good” childhood -- one that privileges some children while historically excluding many others, especially girls, Black children, and children of colour. In this episode, Dr. Sara Grimes (Director of the KMDI) chats with Dr. Samantha White, Assistant Professor of Sport Studies at Manhattanville College (New York), about her work on children’s sporting cultures at the intersection of race and gender, and how mapping the history and politics of children and sports is crucial for understanding contemporary ideas about childhood. The discussion focuses on two of Dr. White’s recent articles, “Ebony Jr! and the Black Athlete: Meritocracy, Sport, and African-American Children’s Media” (Journal of Sport History, 2020), and “Black Girls Swim: Race, Gender, and Embodied Aquatic Histories” (Girlhood Studies, 2021).
Type of research discussed in today’s episode: sports studies; historical research; archival research; textual/media analysis; communication studies; Black studies; gender studies; children’s studies.
Keywords for today’s episode: Black girl athletes; child athletes; children’s sporting culture; media representation; meritocracy; spectacular sports; embodied respectability.
For more information and a full transcript of each episode, check out our website: http://kmdi.utoronto.ca/the-critical-technology-podcast/
Send questions or comments to: [email protected]

Previous Episode

Child Data Citizen

We all know that the global data economy relies on the ongoing collection, exchange and use of massive amounts of our data – from personal information, to what we do online, to algorithmic forecasts about what we might to do in the future. But what about children’s data? Although there are special laws in place to protect children’s privacy in many regions around the world, huge amounts of their data are still being collected by a growing of devices and applications. In this episode, Dr. Sara Grimes (Director of the KMDI) chats with Dr. Veronica Barassi, Professor in Media and Communication Studies at the University of St. Gallen, in Switzerland, about her research and theories of how childhood itself is being transformed by the production and manipulation of personally identifying digital data. The discussion is focused on key arguments and findings found in Dr. Barassi’s new book, Child Data Citizen: How Tech Companies Are Profiling Us from Before Birth, which outlines key trends contributing to a “datafication” of children and the troubling implications this has for their rights and futures.
Type of research discussed in today’s episode: anthropology; ethnography; digital ethnography; communication studies; civic rights and democracy studies.
Keywords for today’s episode: data citizen; datafication; data flows; data economies; big data; digital participation; democracy; consent; data justice.
For more information and a full transcript of each episode, check out our website: http://kmdi.utoronto.ca/the-critical-technology-podcast/
Send questions or comments to: [email protected]

Next Episode

Kids and Emotional AI

As smart toys, virtual assistants, and machine learning apps spread across our homes and schools, an increasing number of children are now living, learning, and growing up around artificial intelligence or “AI”. Yet, we still know very little about children’s relationship with AI, how they feel about the seemingly knowledgeable voices coming out of their electronic devices, or how AI responds to children’s feelings. In this episode, Dr. Sara Grimes (Director of the KMDI) chats with Dr. Andrew McStay, Professor of Digital Life at Bangor University (Wales, UK) and Director of the Emotional AI Lab about the ethics and impacts of AI technologies designed to read and respond to our emotions, and their growing presence in children’s lives. The discussion is focused on two of Dr. McStay’s recent articles in the journal Big Data & Society: “Emotional artificial intelligence in children’s toys and devices: Ethics, governance and practical remedies,” co-authored with Dr. Gilad Rosner (2021), and “Emotional AI, soft biometrics and the surveillance of emotional life: An unusual consensus on privacy” (2020).
[Please Note: The news story described at the very start of the intro happened in late 2021, not 2020. With apologies for the error and any resulting confusion!]
Type of research discussed in today’s episode: mixed-method research; social science; media/communication studies; philosophy of technology; ethics; law/policy research.
Keywords for today’s episode: artificial intelligence (AI); emotion; empathy; feeling into; soft biometrics; emotoys; generational unfairness; technological ambivalence; governance; data protection and privacy; children’s rights.
For more information and a full transcript of each episode, check out our website: http://kmdi.utoronto.ca/the-critical-technology-podcast/
Send questions or comments to: [email protected]