In this special edition of GenderIT.org we share the experiences and reflections on the recent AWID Forum in Brazil (2016), in which a large group of women from APC Women’s Rights Programme and our partners from different countries and regions, participated enthusiastically. With the participation of 1,700 people from 140 countries, this year’s AWID Forum showed that the feminist movement keeps growing stronger worldwide, and is committed to a politics of diversity and inclusion. We definitely do not and cannot lead single-issue lives.

We definitely do not and cannot lead single-issue lives.

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editorial

[EDITORIAL] Fortitude and transformative energy in the AWID Forum: experiences from 2002 to 2016

Tools for movement builders: ICT Toolkit and We Rise – Just Associates

Central to the toolkit is how to develop a feminist communication strategy whilst making safe and sustainable choices amongst the array of available ICT tools. Rooted in the experience and contexts of women activists in southern Africa, the toolkit links our activism and organising that happens in person and “offline” to the tools of the online world. Especially since the online world creates powerful ways to make visible our campaigns in new and wider spaces and to engage expanded networks of people.

Coming Back to Tech

There are a growing number of resources to prevent and respond to many kinds of online harassment faced by women and marginalised people working as activists, human rights defenders or journalists. But what happens 'the day after' an attack? What happens after the more urgent crisis phase(s) of a campaign of harassment passes?

The backbone of our thirsty complicities: from internet hiccups to collective synapsis at AWID 2016

Not being able to connect online has geopolitical and infrastructural dimensions. On the one hand, we face the challenge to defend internet as a common good, beyond the claws of Capitalism and Patriarchy; on the other hand, we encounter the possibility of creating and engaging in other landscapes. Bringing to life places (though sometimes ephemeral) like the Feminist Internet Exchange FixHub in AWID Forum is of extreme relevance.

Public. Autonomous. Anonymous. Group. Sexting. At AWID 2016. Oh yeah!

"Welcome to the Feminist Internet eXchange Hub! Make sure you come back tonight for some group sexting - public, autonomous, anonymous, group sexting!" we called to women as they stumbled in to explore our feminist internet exchange space at AWID Feminist Futures Forum, 2016. Sometimes they grinned and asked "what time!?", sometimes their cheeks reddened and they looked away abruptly. Most were like - "Huh?"

Feminist politics of freedom of speech - Reflections on session in AWID 2016

The discourse on technology related violence against women is often pulled into debate vis-a-vis freedom of expression. This article attempts to unpack the possibility of looking at this debate different - to articulate what is the feminist politics of free speech. Does it go beyond the protection of the right as currently imagined, to open up the possibilities of those who are marginalized, excluded and victims of violence also getting to exercise their right to free speech.

We can't do it alone: Connections at AWID 2016

In such massive gatherings often the plenary session rings a bit empty or hollow, like background noise to other more real conversations taking place. AWID was different in that its massive burst of energy and radical politics was most often from the plenary sessions. This article explores the sessions at AWID held by Dalit women, Romani women, Rojava/Kobane women, and others.

Mapping the feminist internet: the Whose Knowledge? campaign at the AWID Forum

Whose Knowledge? works with individuals, communities, organisations and movements worldwide to create, collect and curate knowledge from and with marginalised communities, particularly women, people of colour, LGBTQI communities, indigenous peoples and others from the global South. Essentially, Whose Knowledge? is a radical re-imagining and reconstruction of the internet, so that the internet can truly be from and for us all.