WUNRN
ICT’s for Feminist Movement Building: Activist Toolkit
By Just Associates (JASS), the Association for Progressive Communications
(APC) and Women'sNet (APC/JASS/Women'sNet)
Direct Link to Full 160-Page 2015 Publication: http://www.justassociates.org/sites/justassociates.org/files/icts_toolkit_2015.pdf
We want
movements that are effective, resilient, visible and safe. Building feminist
communication strategies using ICTs helps us achieve this. ICTs impact us all,
so we need to understand them, influence how they are developed, empower
ourselves to use them and harness them to make a difference.
Across the
world, women are using information and communication technologies (ICTs) to
support rights agendas, tell their own stories and challenge emerging issues in
regard to access, women’s voices and violence. We can use ICTs for social,
political and economic participation.
Women’s
organising has brought about many changes and created a more equal world but we
still face many challenges. We must take advantage of the extraordinary
potential of ICTs to help us bring about social justice, equality between women
and men, as well as for all oppressed groups.
We know that
much of our activism and organising happens and always will happen in person
and “offline”. Linking to the tools of the online world, however, creates
powerful ways to make visible our campaigns in new and wider spaces and to
engage expanded networks of people.
About the
Toolkit
In this
toolkit, we draw on the experience and contexts of women activists in southern Africa
and beyond. And while we focus on women’s rights activists, anyone who is part
of a movement for social change will find it useful.
The toolkit
aims to assist activists to think through their communication strategies in a
way that supports movement building. It offers a practical guide to writing a
communication strategy and reviews a number of tools (ICTs) and
technology-related campaigns which can be used in organising work.
The toolkit is
also about feminist practice and how to use tools and communicate in ways that
are democratic, make women’s voices stronger and louder whilst challenging
stereotypes and discriminatory social norms. We hope it will assist activists
in making creative, safe and sustainable choices in using ICTs in our
communication strategies.
- experiment
and be creative in the way you communicate
- think
about how communications can help us to build movements for social justice
- develop a
feminist communication strategy for your organisation that amplifies
women’s voices and supports them to tell their own stories
- think
about which ICTs to use and when
- adopt a
feminist approach to your use and understanding of ICTs
- communicate
in ways that challenge gender stereotypes
- think
through safety and security concerns that women activists face when using
technology
- understand
how power works in design, governance and access to ICTs and challenge
inequality in our world
- design a
workshop for your organisation on ICTs and communications.
Table of
Contents
Chapter 2: This
toolkit’s political framework
Chapter 3:
Communicating for feminist movement building
Chapter 4: The
internet and ICTs as political spaces and tools
