Harrison, Katherine | Sveden

Katherine Harrison is a postdoctoral researcher at the Unit of Gender Studies, Department of Thematic Studies, Linkoping University, Sweden. She has a PhD in gender studies from Linkoping University, Sweden, and a Master’s degree from King’s College, University of London, UK. Katherine’s research interests include gender and sexuality, feminist theory, material-discursive bodies (human/animal/machine), writing practices and tools, trans- gender/discipline/format, ICTs and biotechnologies, and entanglements of medical technologies, discourses and sexualities. Her current research project explores a gender perspective on information and communication technologies used by the Swedish rescue services. In addition to her research, she is course coordinator for the "Introduction to Intersectional Gender Studies, Policy and Politics in a Globalized World" undergraduate course at the Unit of Gender Studies. Katherine is also the GEXcel Editorial Coordinator responsible for the Routledge Advances in Feminist Studies and Intersectionality book series.

Project at IAS-STS: Information management, gender and organisation

This is part of a wider research project for the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (Myndigheten för samhällsskydd och beredskap (MSB)) titled ‘Gender, rescue services and organisation’ (GRO) which she is conducting with six colleagues. Katherine’s subproject is focused on information and communication technologies (ICTs) used by MSB and the municipal emergency services. The main research question that this project seeks to answer is: what are the effects of the interaction between gender and (information) technologies on the processing and sharing of information? Related questions include: i) in what ways do organisational gender dynamics influence use and design of information technologies?; ii) how is information processed and mediated at the intersection of gender and information technologies; iii) what effect does this mediation have on application or use of this information in society? This study takes into account both the historically contingent gendering of space and technologies, but also the material limitations of technologies. In this project, Katherine is using interactive research methodologies to engage with the developers and users of a database designed to capture and process information about accidents.

Selected Publications

'Data writing: an interactive feminist writing method for sustainable ICT change’. 6th European Conference on Gender and ICT (March 2011: Umeå University) (Available online at: https://gict2011.informatik.umu.se/data/uploads/harrison.pdf)

Special issue of the Graduate Journal of Social Science titled ‘Trans Studies & Theories: Building up the Field in a Nordic Context’. Guest editor with Ulrica Engdahl (December 2010, http://www.gjss.org/index.php?/Volume-7-Issue-2-December-2010-Transgender-Studies.html)

Discursive skin: Entanglements of gender, discourse and technology (Linköping University: 2010)

‘Detecting bodily and discursive noise in the naming of biotech products’, European Journal of Women’s Studies special issue on Feminist Technoscience Studies, 2010, 17 (4), 347-361.

‘Gender resistance: interrogating the ‘punk’ in cyberpunk’ (shorter version of the above paper), in Humanity in Cybernetic Environments ed.Daniel Riha. (The Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2010) http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/publishing/id-press/ebooks/humanity-in-cybernetic-environments/