School of Social and Political Science

Description

This lecture presents a reflection on our efforts to amplify the presence, knowledge, and narratives of the global majority—communities on the internet and in digital spaces. Yet this work is fraught with paradox: the same digital spaces that enable knowledge representation for the global majority often reproduce oppressive structures operating through the logics of capitalism, surveillance and theft and commodification of our knowledge. Through the work we have done, I explore moments of joy - celebrating visibility, solidarity, and resistance. I attempt to interrogate the limitations of our approaches and ask: How do we imagine technology for people and not profit ? How do we center lessons from those already crafting liberatory futures at the margins?

Maari Zwick-Maitreyi is Language Justice Co-Lead at Whose Knowledge? She has roots in South Asia and its diasporas. She is a feminist, artist and scholar interested in the intersections of technology, knowledge and language, particularly as it manifests for peoples of the Global Majority on the internet. She has been involved in and researching participatory digital and multi-modal knowledge- making cultures for over a decade and believes strongly in the equitable creation, representation and reception of knowledge, language, art, culture and histories of the Global Majority.