Kenya
Feminist talk
Digging up Trauma, Survivor Porn and other Ethical Concerns about Research
Research is often meant for lofty objectives of ensuring policy change, and at at the very least, it should do no harm. But what if your research is about violence - and what risks do we run when asking participants to revisit their trauma and hurt that they experienced because of online violence.
Feminist talk
A response to ‘The age of the feminist influencer’
How we organise around shared causes and beliefs has changed with the internet. This piece looks at how the internet allows leadership to be decentralised, and a response to the idea that the age of influencers is necessarily a bad thing.
In depth
“Our Constitution is Strong”: Straight Digital Discourse and Disremembered Queer Accounts
What does it mean to rise to the surface of people's attention briefly because of violence done to your body, harassment, dispossession and precarity, only to be replaced the next day by the next trending hashtag? This article explores the limits of straight discourse online and the convenient elision of queer accounts and issues.
Feminist talk
What lies behind the fears of digital identity? The experience of the Huduma number in Kenya
The rollout of the Huduma namba is taking place over Kenya. This article traces the experience of one young woman Nyangi as she tries to get a card, and more broadly the problems and hurdles posed by the system of digital identity.
Feminist talk
Artificial intelligence for mental health
This article explores mental health facilities in Kenya and if artificial intelligence can provide solutions for the dire need for infrastructure. Even if the use of artificial intelligence poses a solution to this, there are risks for data and privacy, algorithmic bias and large scale misdiagnosis. AI can only work when alongside human and humane treatment.
In depth
More than words. Investigating online discourse as a space of Gender-Based Violence
Here are insights into research on online gender-based violence against women and other minorities - especially around sexual objectification, delegitimisation of public personas, non-conformity to gender stereotypes and idealised notions of womanhood. Elena Pavan shares also about doing research using data scraped from online public discourses and the key questions going forward.
Feminist talk
Social Media: The New Frontier for ICT – facilitated Violence against Women
Non consensual circulation or sharing of intimate intimages or non consensual pornography is becoming increasingly prevalent. Here Bonface Witaba shares few studies on this viral social phenomenon, what steps have been taken and are likely to be taken in the context of Kenya, on a global scale and by social media companies to address the problem.
Publication
Mapping research on gender and digital technology
The emerging sub-field of research around gender and digital technology is united in its understanding that gender biases and stereotypes are embedded in technology, and that this reproduces the existing problems around gender parity, gender-based violence, discrimination and exclusion on the internet. This report is a mapping of the research around gender and digital technology in the decade...
Feminist talk
The identity predicament: a story about statelessness and the fight for denied rights
The system of integrated biometric database in Kenya, Huduma Namba, exposes multilayered challenges of statelessness, loss of basic human rights and availing government services. Through conversations with Mariam, a Nubian woman, we learn about the tedious and extremely long waiting period to obtain an ID card, without which people from ethnic minorities are not counted as citizens, and are...
In depth
Good-mannered women never make any history, even online
Through two stories from Kenyan women, this article shows how women get harassed online, especially when they express themselves in ways that do not conform to the patriarchal order in the society which they live in.
