Technology is a feminist issue and an issue for all feminists. It is implicitly and explicitly embedded in gender-based violence, state surveillance, war and genocide, and many more issues affecting womxn, LGBTQIAP+ persons, and communities in/from the Global Majority, reproducing historical and ongoing structures of power and privilege.
If we want technology that is feminist by design, we need spaces to contain, ground, and nurture our dreams. Playfulness, experimentation, and deep human connection are the fertile soil to grow technology that is liberatory and centred on autonomy and freedom, rather than just another piece of the master’s tools. In this year’s AWID Forum, in Thailand, we’re bringing our frames and reflections about tech and knowledge justice to different sessions and interventions we’re joining and co-organizing — from our #VisibleWikiWomen photo booth to a Wiki edit-a-thon. This feminist gathering is a full-circle moment for Whose Knowledge?: back in 2016, we launched our first steps as a collective at the AWID Forum in Bahia, Brazil, invited by our friends from APC (Association for Progressive Communications) to the Feminist Internet eXchange (FIX) Hub. We were surrounded by fellow feminists in this community space, where we mapped feminist content online and identified what was missing from our internet and its sites of knowledge production.
We have blossomed in multiple ways since then and now hold another shared space. The Feminist Tech Gardens is a special section of the festival for feminists across the world to re-discover and re-design their relationship with technology. The gardens are interconnected ecosystems to reclaim the digital and technological realms with solidarity, hope, and resistance. We at Whose Knowledge? are co-holding these spaces with the always inspiring Association for Progressive Communications (APC), and the only Global Majority/Larger World feminist tech funder (that we are proud to have co-founded), Numun Fund!
As we prepare to convene in Bangkok, we invite you to browse through the different landscapes and spaces for learning and cross-pollination.
Take pictures at the #VisibleWikiWomxn photo booth
The photo booth is a practice and a feminist corner we have brought to different convenings, including the Forum on Internet Freedom in Africa (FIFAfrica 2022), the RightsCon Summit, and Wikimania 2023 in Singapore. This time, we’re taking pictures and documenting fellow feminists, especially from the Global Majority worlds, at the AWID Forum. We are creating visual memories that will be brought to WikiCommons as part of the #VisibleWikiWomen campaign, while also centering feminist practices of consent and image-taking and sharing.
Come say hi, hang out, take your photo, and talk more about feminist memory-making and visual memories at Plenary Foyer B at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Center.
Explore the Wikiverse
The digital space reproduces the multiple forms of violence and oppression against black, brown, indigenous, trans, queer, and other womxn of color. One way it manifests is through the erasure of these communities and their histories and contributions online. However, open knowledge platforms can offer safeguards in the face of impermanence, with alternatives for memory-making and preservation. In our wiki-editing sessions, the goal is to promote a hands-on approach to reshaping the wikiverse — upon which many platforms and tools are built, making interventions easily spread online — and the digital space. Participants are invited to work with images produced in previous #VisibleWikiWomxn photo booths — to add descriptions, captions, and structured data, thinking collectively about what it means to produce visual representations in the digital realms.
If you’re excited about memory online and data narratives, curious about Wikimedia projects, or simply would like to experiment with some editing, you are welcome to join the edit-a-thons. Sessions will take place on December 3rd, starting at 2 pm Bangkok time, in the festival area of the Feminist Tech Gardens.
Honouring communities’ histories through archives
Our Liberatory Archives and Memory (LAMy) program is an action against systematic erasures and an invitation for minoritized/forcibly marginalized communities to honour their histories through archives. Under this umbrella, we will hold two main activities at the conference: the “Anti-forgetfulness Workshop”, and a space for engaging with maps from Palestine.
The workshop will introduce critical liberatory interventions to archiving through a feminist lens, and provide skills on how to archive movements and their histories and work. In the gardens, we will also depart from maps of Palestine, and invite everyone to interact with the maps through any sort of expression that honors Palestinian lives, memories, and histories.
Join us at the Feminist Tech Gardens on December 3rd from 11 AM-12-30PM for the workshop, and explore the maps throughout the four days of the AWID convening.
Recollecting memory, preserving herstory
Our Liberatory Archives and Memory co-lead, Ezrena Marwan, who is also the co-founder of Malaysia Design Archive, is joining a session on feminist memory, archives and technology. The learning circle is also facilitated by PurpleCode Collective, Kelas Liarsip from Indonesia, and the Queer Indonesia Archive. How do feminists approach the memory of the lived experiences of womxn and queer folks when documentations are largely absent, in the context of patriarchal communities and the digital environment?
Join the conversation on December 2nd at 11:45 AM, at the Queen Sirikit Convention Center.
Zine-ing a feminist internet
In the landscape of the gardens, we are holding an open space for passersby, artists, and whoever feels inclined to engage with different provocations to create collages. There will be a special prompt for each day of the AWID Forum, with room for playfulness, experimentation, and connection – moments to think about your teenage and child self, what you need to live your best life online, and the wonders of feminist principles of the internet.
Come with curiosity and openness to create, and come collage with us in the Feminist Tech Gardens at any time of the day from December 2 to 5, starting at 11 AM.
WK? learning conversations
In the “Organizational design, practices, radical operations, and programming” session, we invite attendees to exchange methodologies, learnings, and challenges from their work in nurturing collectives and movements. Starting from a broader conversation, people in the room will split into thematic groups for different areas, such as operations and strategy work. We invite you to bring your questions, experiences, and intentions for creating feminist organizational practices and policies into this learning space.
You can meet us on Monday, December 2, at 4:30 PM, in the Feminist Tech Gardens.
Connect with fellow feminists
We are excited for all the learnings and cross-pollination for our movements and, of course, for the chance to meet face-to-face with (existing and soon-to-be) partners, friends, and allies. Mark your calendars for December 2nd for our African feminists gathering, and on December 4th for a meetup with fellow Latin American feminists. Both gatherings begin at 6 pm in the Feminist Tech Gardens.
