Indepth

Availability and affordability of the internet have a major impact on whether women are able to access and use the internet. In this article we explore what happens when community networks bring the internet closer to women and the small and big ways in which this changes their lives.

Zenzeleni, which means ‘do it yourself’ in isiXhosa, has become exemplary of the unique challenges and remarkable successes of a community network in the global south. In this interview, Sol Luca de Tena discusses how the cooperative business model for Zenzeleni has evolved to center community needs and priorities.

In this interview with Chako Armant who researches and works on a community network on the island of Idjwi in DRC, she talks about running a community network while there is ongoing uncertainty and conflict, and how they are addressing norms around gender and technology.

Censorship has been replaced online by a system of content moderation controlled by companies, and these rely on both automation as well as human moderators employed to sift through content. The choice is not between the alleged neutrality of the impersonal machine and the errors and finiteness of human moderation, as both work in tandem.

Advances in biological sciences suggest that in the future it would be possible to give birth to babies outside of the woman's body, and this upsets assumptions that connect reproductive labour to fixed gender roles. What are then the implications for feminist imaginations and futures?

In this article about research with domestic workers and unions, we look at the implications of feminist methods of research and standpoint theory, and how feminist methods of research should seek to destabilise power hierarchies and dynamics. 

What is the place of memory in research? What happens when researchers hold fragile links to the past for a community? How can we pleasantly complicate our ideas around research and writing by including the role of memories - that of those being researched and our own as well.

Research on social media, particularly relying on public and semi-public data shared by people, raises uncomfortable questions about privacy of people and their consent to being part of a research project. What questions of consent does a feminist lens on this subject raise?

Women are being recognised as consumers of pornography increasingly which potentially can change how compulsory heterosexuality and gender stereotypes are embedded in media. Here we explore the contradictions between women consuming porn and sexual violations of female performers, and how do we then understand, research and talk about consumption of pornography.

Privacy rights are becoming increasingly important and especially in the context of increasing datafication. Shmyla Khan of Digital Rights Foundation in Pakistan talks about the ways in which privacy rights are relevant, used and abused in the lives of women and gender diverse people.