Conferencing in times of climate crisis and Covid-19: feminist and queer reflections on the digital shift in academic work

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article employs a holistic understanding of environmental, social, and economic sustainability to explore the interaction between neoliberalism, climate crisis, digitalization, and academic work with a focus on its everyday aspects. Drawing our experience of organizing an online conference during the Covid-19 pandemic and our dialogue with conference participants, we first problematize the presumed disembodiment of digital exchange and suggest a nuanced understanding of physicality’s role in knowledge production. We then explore the impact of the changing times and spaces of academic work on bodies and minds and the boundaries between private and public realms. Finally, we challenge the notion of digital solutionism by highlighting the implications of inhabiting digital platforms as spaces for knowledge production. While there is no simple solution to the problems around the digital shift in academic work and conferencing, we argue, downsizing can be a counteraction to platform capitalism in times of the climate crisis.