Purple Code. Intersectional feminist perspectives on digital societies
Aussteller: Bianca Herlo, Sana Ahmad and Lena Ullrich
The Purple Code Podcast is a way to listen to voices that are often silenced, and to highlight various forms of oppression, for example sexist, racist, colonial, and other – in order to see technology and society differently.
The development of digital technologies, their application, and the research surrounding them are deeply intertwined with systems of oppression. This podcast aims to explore the perspectives of women and gender dissidents who actively engage with digital technologies, shedding light on scientific findings, subjective viewpoints, and personal experiences.
In each episode, the focus is on a guest who shares insights into their work, experiences, and perspectives on relevant socio-political issues. The interviewees come from diverse fields such as research, art, activism, and journalism. By providing a platform for voices that are often marginalized or silenced, the podcast aims to highlight various forms of oppression, including sexism, racism, colonialism, and others. Ultimately, the goal is to encourage dialog and exchange with different views on technology and society and to create a community around diverse perspectives on digital technologies.
Episode with Renata Ávila
We talk about Renata’s experiences as a human rights lawyer and her work with regards to massive human rights violations of indigenous people in Latin America. She elaborates on the potentials of technology when in the hands of people and how she dealt with testimony material and archives, with hours and hours of testimonies. The impermanence of the human rights internet and the lack of support of archives when we discuss human rights violations is one central moment in this episode: many of the websites are gone, many of the documentation about human rights abuses and the battle for accountability vanished. Renata elaborates on the accessibility of relevant material for the public interest and the anachronic copyright laws and restrictions due to geo-location and geographic restrictions.
Episode with Meera Ghana
Meera Ghani is a human rights and climate activist from Pakistan, based in Belgium. In this episode we talk about many forms of violence against feminist, environmental and digital rights activists in Pakistan and in the West, which are often amplified by digital technologies. Meera shares with us her vision of a culture of care as an antidote to online and offline violence. Meera explains why it is important that organizations take measures that go beyond merely preserving the functioning of their members and employees; and that organizations instead should strive for care in a serious way. However, cultures of care demand transparency about power relations and a redistribution of power – which finds much resistance in practice, in Meera’s and our experience.
Episode with Nakeema Stefflbauer
Dr. Nakeema Stefflbauer is a Brooklyn native and a long-term Berlin resident with a background in digital transformation and social entrepreneurship. In this episode, Nakeema shares many insights into decades of experience in the tech sector. Her work spans from years of research in North Africa and the Middle East to operating in the tech sector in New York, Toronto and Boston. In Berlin, she founded “FrauenLoop”, an NGO that trains women-identified persons in computer programming and offers a diverse network for women from all different backgrounds to build a lasting career in tech. Nakeema takes us back to the beginnings of FrauenLoop and elaborates why she started this program. In her work as a decolonial researcher, questions of women and diversity in tech and how to address the marginalization of especially female immigrants and refugees in the tech industry are central. This conversation raises many new questions and informs our very discussions on systems of oppression and digital technologies.
Layout and logo design by Athena Grandis, Production by Jackob Stratmann
Kontakt
Name: Bianca Herlo
Telefon: +491708573078
E-Mail: bianca.herlo@udk-berlin.de
Webseite: https://purplecode.org/