Organizer: The Global Technology for Social Justice Lab at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst
Type/Location: Virtual
Description:
This webinar will launch a new study and discuss the future of tech and democracy programs and disinformation studies in global context. As we witness the rise of authoritarian regimes worldwide, we will discuss the importance of trust network-building and other strategies to support at-risk researchers and pro-democracy advocates.
This research shares lessons learned through a yearlong research collaboration among academics and activists of the Global Majority Knowledge Exchange project. Practicing the ethos of South-to-South exchange and South-to-North contra-flows of knowledge frames, we will discuss what Global North researchers and activists can learn from their counterparts in countries with longer histories of authoritarian backsliding.
This event launches an important new study entitled Custom Built / Feito Sob Medida: Reforming Tech and Democracy Programs for the Global Majority. Retelling both frustrations and creative aspirations of over 100 frontliners of election integrity and media freedom initiatives from Brazil to India to Kenya to the Philippines, the study discusses the “illusion of inclusion” in the tech and democracy space. Overdetermined by Global North funding priorities and governments’ securitization agenda, tech and democracy projects are often experienced in the Global Majority as top-down and tools- and tech-first rather than community-driven, healing-oriented, and custom built, or in Portuguese, feito sob medida.
Download the report here: https://glotechlab.net/custom_built_main/
About the Speakers:
Jonathan Corpus Ong, GloTech / UMass Amherst
Marcelo Alves Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro
Raquel Recuero Federal University of Pelotas
Invited Expert Discussants:
Prof Herman Wasserman (Stellenbosch University, South Africa)
Dr Nina Santos (Desinformante, Brazil)
Paco Camacho (The Asia Foundation, Philippines)
Sabhanaz Rashid Diya (Tech Global Institute)
Dinita Putri (Luminate Group)
Moderator: Ethan Zuckerman GloTech & IDPI / UMass Amherst
Registration Link:
To attend the event online, please register here.