Post-Welfare Mothers In Wi-Fi Zones
Abstract
This essay explores women and mobile intimacy through the story of “Neighborhoodworks.net” —a community-cooperative, never-launched Wi-Fi zone in Walnut Hills, Cincinnati—that intended to serve poor, unemployed, ambiguously raced single mothers whom project advocates called “Vanessa.” “Vanessa” is significant as a “post-welfare” figure of feminine poverty who individualizes what, at other moments in history, has been understood as a political problem that demanded remedy via collective action. I conclude by calling on feminist scholars to move beyond taken-for-granted notions about the rewards of mobile privatization, and instead, embrace political struggle.
Abstract
This essay explores women and mobile intimacy through the story of “Neighborhoodworks.net” —a community-cooperative, never-launched Wi-Fi zone in Walnut Hills, Cincinnati—that intended to serve poor, unemployed, ambiguously raced single mothers whom project advocates called “Vanessa.” “Vanessa” is significant as a “post-welfare” figure of feminine poverty who individualizes what, at other moments in history, has been understood as a political problem that demanded remedy via collective action. I conclude by calling on feminist scholars to move beyond taken-for-granted notions about the rewards of mobile privatization, and instead, embrace political struggle.
