Logging on Laggardly . . . A Critical (Self) Reflection

Abstract

In this autoethnography, the author uses the context of a research fellowship to interrogate and resist diffusion perspectives and practices embedded in digital adoption ideologies. Musing from the vantage point of a Global South academic, her negotiation of and resistance toward the digital environment are enacted by discussing the historic and contemporary ways in which cultural imperialism is experienced. The fellowship itself becomes an occasion to relinquish doctrinaire positions on cultural imperialism, and conceptual gaps become a lived reality. In this article, she argues for a reflective scientific agenda which critiques theoretical traditions in academia, recasts the contemporary digital environment through a Gramscian lens, and concludes by legitimizing personal agency and meaning-making in the use of digital tools.