16th February 2024 by Genevieve Clifford
I am writing to a number of organisations supporting transgender people across Wales and inviting them (or representatives) to be part of what I’m calling a “PhD advisory network” — in essence a group of stakeholders who I can query about current gaps in knowledge, and seek specialist advice for conducting my PhD (“Towards an understanding of transgender digital poverty in Wales”). I reproduce this email below so that the invitation can reach a larger audience.
Hi folks,
I’m Genevieve, and I’m in the first year of a PhD project exploring factors affecting, current mitigations, and future developments in supporting trans people at risk or in digital poverty in Wales (Lucas, Robinson, and Treacy 2021; Yates et al. 2023); I will also be approaching this project by considering how non-digital forms of poverty interact with this too. I am particularly interested in how current policy caters for, or could be updated with supporting trans people’s access to technology and their livelihoods!
I am building an “advisory network”, seeking feedback on proposed research methodologies and deciding what is / isn’t a research priority for the trans community at the present time, both aims in keeping with recommendations made by Vincent (missing reference) and Marshall et al. (missing reference) for ethical trans research. I extend this invitation to your organisation to join my advisory network because as I believe it would be mutually beneficial to work together, and would greatly appreciate your insight in undertaking my research.
At present, I am in the early stages of this project and working on a scoping literature review and critical policy analysis; later this year I will be developing the methodology I will use in the rest of my PhD to investigate the area discussed above. I will share the findings of my initial scoping literature review (and later work too), and would greatly appreciate feedback from folks who are interested in this area!
If you are interested in being a part of this network or have any questions about it or my PhD, please email me at 2004599@swansea.ac.uk.
I am a white transfeminine PhD student in Computer Science, and the social sciences more broadly — I have a grounding in social research methods. My previous work as a student has looked at creating sustainable digital infrastructure for rural communities (Clifford 2021), as well as looking at how third space / kinship networks address digital divides for trans people in Wales (working with Trans Tech Tent) (missing reference). I have also worked as a research assistant on a project looking at digital harms and victimisation from online / hybrid (online + offline elements) crimes; I worked with victims, and stakeholders in sectors supporting them (charity and third sector, local and national government, and law enforcement) (missing reference). My PhD is supported by the Economic and Social Research Council through a Welsh Graduate School for the Social Sciences (formerly ESRC Wales DTP) funded studentship under the Digital Economy and Society pathway1. My work is supervised by three academics from Swansea University, they are: Professor Simon Robinson (Computer Science), Dr Charlotte Jones (Sociology), and Professor Tom Crick (Education and Childhood Studies).
I look forward to hearing back from you!
[email signature]
I need to update my WGSSS profile! ↩