For better or for worse: Migrant women workers and ICTs

The Asian continent which is composed of tiger and emerging economies, is both a big producer and consumer of computer mediated communication. Research on cyberspace in the Asian context, however, began only after the 1990's when the digital revolution spread outside the West. These initial studies which were largely dependent on Western categories, did not probe into the socio-cultural contexts in which the technologies emerged and have developed. This has changed though in the past years. This anthology hopes to contribute, in particular, to the analysis of the mutually constitutive interaction of the use of cyberspace and Asian cultures, with particular attention to ethical, feminist, and religious perspectives especially within Catholic Christianity. Core themes discussed in the contributors' essays are the democratizing potential of cyberspace, the digital/gender divide, global division of digital/virtual labor, cyber-violence against women, women's resistance as well as collusion with masculinist capitalist interests on the Net, masquerading, just internet relations, how web 2.0 spaces are shaping dynamics of power and authority in the church, cyberspace as sacred time and space, and models of spirituality for the digital era