Africa

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.

What is the difference between doing research that takes into consideration gender as a factor and being a feminist researcher. In this touching and funny letter, a researcher speaks to her younger self about naivete, idealism and ofcourse, funding. 

Community networks provide alternatives to infrastructure to access internet that is controlled by either companies or the state. In the remote area where Kondoa Community Network works, even patchy services have been helpful to ensure access to better education and medical services. 

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.

What is the extraordinary power of storytelling and art when it comes to the liberation of personhood and sexuality. Here we explore the domino effect of telling our stories and hearing others.

In this podcast by Tiff and Manda, they explore what is happening when the internet enters the worlds(s) of lesbian, bisexual, queer women and others. Does it open up possibilities of those sliding into our DMs or can it be risky and even dangerous to be openly LGBTQI online. 

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.

In this last week there has been an uproar in support of lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer people in Ethiopia, and also a backlash of online threats, harassment and violence.

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.

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.