June Village: Digital Rights Perspectives from the South - interactive discussions about Asia, Africa, LATAM and MENA
Are you interested in learning about emerging issues in digital rights, and how they are uniquely showing up in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East and North Africa? Do you want to hear about what digital rights defenders in each region are experiencing, what challenges they are facing, and what's on their mind?
Join us for our upcoming village, “Digital Rights Perspectives from the South,” which will run from June 6 to 14.
The Village will feature five virtual sessions led by Team CommUNITY’s four Community Leads, and will incorporate their learnings from the last 18 months doing community building and research in their respective regions. The interactive sessions will also have space for participants to provide their perspectives and feedback.
This is also a great opportunity to thank the Community Leads for their amazing work during some of the hardest years we have collectively gone through together, and provide them with some love and gratitude.
Session Descriptions:
Latin America Digital Rights Perspectives with Úrsula Schüler
Úrsula Schüler
Latin America Community Lead
Date: June 6 @ 9am EDT / 1pm UTC (Tuesday)
In this session we will talk about digital rights in Latin America, its perspectives and cases during 2022-2023. The main topics will be:
An overview about Latin America digital rights: socio-political context, digital rights main demands and civil organizations.
Emerging threats in the region and encouraging new trends - Loan Apps, WhatsApp Pay, and platforms workers organization.
Some important Latin American cases and campaigns to check – Guacamaya leaks, #TireMeuRostoDaSuaMira, and #MigrarSinVigilancia
Bio: Úrsula Schüler is our Latin America Community Lead at Team CommUNITY. She studied journalism in her home country, Chile, and a Digital media marketing postgraduate program in Canada. She has more than seven years of experience working in media, companies, institutions and social organizations.
Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Digital Rights perspectives with Islam Al Khatib
Islam Al Khatib
MENA Community Lead
Date: June 7 @ 9am EDT / 1pm UTC (Wednesday)
In this session we will talk about digital rights in MENA, its perspectives and cases during 2022-2023. The main topics will be:
Increased campaigns and conversations on digital justice in the region from different contexts (highlighting different campaigns, projects, reports by community members).
Further state attempts across borders to control flow of information (violations of data privacy, apps that attempted data extraction, digital surveillance, smearing, COP27 in Egypt as an example).
Community conversations about infrastructure and accessibility (challenges of remote work, financial crises and challenges).
Wellbeing, burnout, and a collective need for better working conditions (consistent campaigning has lead to severe burnout, examples of crises and catastrophes that has deeply impacted the work of DRDs).
Bio: Islam Al Khatib is our MENA Community Lead at Team CommUNITY. She is a Palestinian refugee feminist researcher born and raised in Beirut. Her work focuses on the methods and the processes with which we produce knowledge.
Asia Digital Rights perspectives with Astha Rajvanshi
Astha Rajvanshi
Asia Community Lead
Date: June 8 @ 9am EDT / 1pm UTC (Thursday)
In this session we will talk about digital rights in Asia, its perspectives and cases during 2022-2023. The main topics will be:
Key issues and emerging trends in Asia for digital human rights: how privacy data bills, internet shutdowns and VPN access impact people on the ground.
The challenges of bringing disparate digital communities across Asia together.
Lessons learned from past successes and failures of digital networks, campaigns and infrastructure.
Bio: Astha Rajvanshi is our Asia Community Lead at Team CommUNITY. She is a journalist covering international news for TIME, with a special focus on India. She is interested in exploring how technology and surveillance impacts the intersection of human rights and gender.
Africa Digital Rights perspectives with Mardiya Siba Yahaya
Mardiya Siba Yahaya
Africa Community Lead
Date: June 13 @ 9am EDT / 1pm UTC (Tuesday)
In this session we will talk about digital rights in Africa, its perspectives and cases during 2022-2023. The main topics will be:
Engaging with ‘silent’ communities: a reflection of a community manager.
Connecting emerging trends in Africa; beyond the buzzwords of data governance and AI to the current realities on ground.
What we want as a community: imagining a self-sustaining and resilient community of digital justice practitioners and designers.
Bio: Mardiya Siba Yahaya is our Africa Community Lead at Team CommUNITY. She is a researcher and community movement builder whose work investigates the implications of technology-based surveillance within datafied societies and states, on the lives and bodies minoritized communities.
Commonalities between the regions with Danae Tapia and Úrsula Schüler
Danae Tapia
Director of Community
Date: June 14 @ 9am EDT / 1pm UTC (Wednesday)
In this session we will learn about the commonalities between the different cases and issues among the regions. We will discuss the global trends collected by our network during the last 18 months of community work by meetups and the regional briefs around the Global South.
Úrsula Schüler
Latin America Community Lead
Danae Tapia is a feminist writer, multimedia artist and technologist born in the Chilean working class. She is the founder of The Digital Witchcraft Institute, her fellowship with the Mozilla Foundation and an arts organization where she leads projects that fall at the intersection of posthuman technology, deep migrations and climate justice. She is also a lecturer of Hacking and Autonomous Practices at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam, Netherlands.
Úrsula Schüler is our Latin America Community lead at Team CommUNITY. She studied journalism in her home country, Chile, and a Digital media marketing postgraduate program in Canada. She has more than seven years of experience working in media, companies, institutions and social organizations.
How Can I Prepare?
Check out our Digital Rights Regional monthly briefs from May 2022 to now!
Read our Community Health Report 2022/2023
Make sure to prepare your questions and comments!