Paper short abstract:

Focusing on cybersecurity, this paper explores how everyday employees create, manage, and rework national borders in virtual spaces for state governments and industry. It notes how women are entering these professions, and the transforming contradictions of gender, technology, and militarism.

Paper long abstract:

Much focus has been put on the deterritorialization of information and data in the age of the digital. To provide an alternative view, this presentation will discuss the ways that nation and border-making are inherently part of contemporary virtual spaces. Focusing on the field of cybersecurity in the US, it will explore the ways the everyday actors (at many levels) create, manage, and rework national borders for state governments as well as industry. This extends from official information czars at the top, to cyberspies and design engineers in the middle, to security screeners at the bottom. Accordingly, new jobs are arising in the construction, patrolling, and crossing of borders online, whether the mobile actors people or data. These labors, in turn, have important implications for movements on the ground and the role of bodies in security systems. Moreover, this analysis will note curious trends in the way that women are entering many of these cybersecurity professions, and the contradictions arising with transforming notions of gender, technology, and militarism.