Hacking Binaries/Hacking Hybrids: Understanding the Black/White Binary as a Socio-technical Practice

Abstract

This essay argues that hacking binaries as well as hacking hybrids – theoretically, methodologically and activist as well as in the practice of everyday life – especially around issues of race is an important agenda for feminist technology studies. Using examples from art, architecture, social theory and personal experience, and drawing on science and technology studies (STS), we argue that theoretical and methodological hacking around the Black/White binary is a pathway to the deconstruction of other binaries (as well as reified hybrids) such as digital/material, global/local, private/public, individual/community, open/closed and amateur/professional, which are central to understanding emerging topics in gender, new media and technology.