The Making a Feminist Internet: Movement Building in a Digital Age meeting was held in October 2017 and hosted 84 participants from around the world, primarily from the global South, concerned with issues related to internet rights, women’s rights, sexual rights and digital security.
This first-of-its-kind event – co-organised by APC and movement-based funds and organisations: AWID, Astraea, CREA, the FRIDA Young Women’s Fund, Mama Cash and the Urgent Action Fund – brought together multiple actors to discuss feminist movement building in the digital age, with a specific track addressing digital safety and security issues. This third feminist internet meeting represented a turning point on how technology is understood among women’s rights and sexual rights funders and feminist networks.
One of the premises of the event was the need to build the future with a strong memory of the individual and collective past, acknowledging that movement building happens in a continuum in the digital age, with a central focus on the discourse on technology in relation to infrastructure, safety, participation, governance and decision-making, expression and violence.
A special GenderIT.org edition was launched in November 2017 and captured the main thoughts emerging after the prolific gathering: how to grapple with the new questions to be asked about accountability, movements, ethics, self-care, organising and expression, and to pin down the role of remembering and archiving, of telling, finding and constructing the herstory.
This convening represented the synthesis of a full year of focused advocacy and relentless strategic engagement through capacity building and evidence building with the feminist, women’s rights and sexual rights funders community, leading global organisations and networks, and very localised work with APC members and partners.
To watch out for: APC’s movement building towards a feminist internet will continue, with a fourth gathering of feminists in 2018.
Image: Participants arranging elements in the Museum of Moments installation, as captured by Fungai Machirori.
