Thoughts on Digital Identities, Citizenship and Spaces

Notes from March 24, 2017 (503 words, privately written on 750 Words)

Thoughts on Bonnie Stewart's "Digital Identities and Digital Citizenship" I'm still processing the post, which I had skimmed the day before, wanted to think about and reread before commenting. A post on Medium that I'd just commented on reminded me. I posted a couple of comments on comments and saved a gang of links, some from comments and others related only to my perspective.

This post comes at just the "right" (whatever that is) time. Bon on digital citizenship offers a missing piece of the puzzle that fills in (but does not complete) the identity puzzle. There will always be missing pieces.

I wonder what anyone (any algorithm) collecting would make of my data. Sometimes I feel more like an assemblage of nots, not-identifiers: not working, not an academic, ABD but not a PhD, not a teacher (except as purveyor of information), not a local, not from here, not affiliated, old, poor, not privileged all the while nominally privileged by race and ethnicity, not belonging to any not-privileged category, except perhaps gender (which with age is increasingly irrelevant).

Listing my occupation as "retired" (then why am I so many hours a day on different projects) consigns me to one of the invisible person categories (yes, even more invisible than adjuncts) along with the disabled, homeless and undocumented, albeit a significantly more privileged category. I hit that head on recently at a local "community partnership" meeting for grant funded project

The "resident team" was being sorted by occupation or functional category. I did not go in educator or media but "retired" and commented on that. The granting foundation's lead facilitator told me that was my category (pigeon hole): the other was my personal narrative.

Bear in mind that this is most definitely a citizenship space. Here I have no identity but "retired" and my identity is just a collection of memories, masks and narratives. But aren't we all? Then, today, reading Bon's post and comments, I realize that has been the case with just about every online group, course, text chat I have been in. Among academics, first comes rank, discipline and then affiliation. I profess autonomous, unaffiliated guerrilla informationist and digital dissident. No wonder Bon's 6 identities grabbed me they way it did.

I am an assimilated digital resident, but often an outsider, digitally and on the ground -- is there such a category as a resident digital alien?

I've been (still) wrestling with identity and purpose, manifesting both digitally and on terra firma. We are the people we grow up to be. Our influences are rooted back there. We both change and become more ourselves.

My comment to short Medium article on crafted identities, https://medium.com/startup-grind/why-its-okay-if-your-public-persona-is-half-baked-799ce4fa4856 

I’ve often thought that Voltaire and other aphorists would have taken to social media. Serendipity strikes — coming across this in my morning email reminded me to comment on Bonnie Stewart’s most recent blog post on digital identities (her area although she might flinch at the description) and digital citizenship http://theory.cribchronicles.com/2017/04/21/digital-identities-digital-citizenship-houston-we-have-a-problem/#comment-268854

Collection with Bon Stewart's original post plus links, "Digital: Identities, Citizenship, Commons / exploring @BonStewart's latest blog post" https://www.one-tab.com/page/0D0ipYAzRkGkxFgISbXWjg