Workshop notes

From GDISPwiki

Contents 1 Day 1: 5th October 2007 1.1 Panel 1: Education, Knowledge and Capacity Building - New Frameworks in the IS 1.2 Panel 2: Media and community networks 1.3 Panel 3: Globalisation and the Information Society Context 1.4 Panel 4: Institutional Change and Citizenship in the Information Society 2 Day 2: 6th October 2007 2.1 Open Space: 2.1.1 Group 1. Advocacy for Gender Sensitive ICT Policies 2.1.2 Group 2. Engendering Civic Politics Using ICTs 2.1.3 Group 3. Feminist Framework Building and the Information Society 2.1.4 Group 4. Content regulation of the internet 3 Day 3: 7th October 2007 3.1 Sharing of the findings of the Pre-Workshop Survey by ISIS International-Manila 3.1.1 DISCUSSION 3.2 PANEL: Global Feminist Collaboration for Advocacy – What Works and What Doesn’t 3.3 Closing Session: Vision of the Network 3.3.1 Concrete Proposals for Future Action

Day 1: 5th October 2007

Panel 1: Education, Knowledge and Capacity Building - New Frameworks in the IS

Key questions: What new frameworks and models are needed to understand the potential of new technologies as an enabler for women's empowerment? What parallels can be drawn between mass education and a similar massification of new technologies, for gender equality?

gender issues

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• it is important to go beyond question of access to education and training, and think how education can be used for women's/community empowerment
• women's group are not aware how technologies can be also used to disempower and exploit women..

ICT issues

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• ICT technologies are driven/define by profit and private sector compare to written word which was more defined by public sector ...
• there is question to what extend has ict community desire to facilitate social change for local communities, especially given the current changes brought about by information society are already happening in their favour
• the level of access to information is very often question of power relationships, but they are sometimes 'security/safety' concerns which are raised in negotiation who will gain access to what information
• because someone knows how to handle technology it does not mean this person is more knowledgeable than local community members..people on the local level need to learn how to use technologies
• ICTs are still seen as merely technical tool, but not as development tool and issue in themselves.
• there is need to see complex picture of microsoft, it is not just software, but they are also influencing for example the agenda around intellectual property. moreover it is not only important to look at how are ngos facing to IPR issues, but also to understand gender issues within the linux movement
• language issue: how ict capacity building and access to knowledge is affected by english domination, and language issues.

Policy implications

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• There is need to reassess who are gender advocates, what kind of groups are engaged within ICT issues? ICT people or local community members? Whose views, concerns and needs are represented then?
• There is need for the intersectoral dialog among diverse movements and to challenge lack of information sharing and collaboration, but who is supposed to bring this dialog together.......?
• ICT technologies should serve the vision/objectives of organisations/community/people, not to be means of exercising new powers..
• gender national machineries are not engaged in these discussion, it is our responsibility as gender advocates to engage them in national ICT policy development. They may help to bridge boundaries between NGOs and GOs, thereby we need to seen them as our allies in ict policy making..

Panel 2: Media and community networks

Gender issues

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• Limitation of WMM - left out ICT based media and community media in their media monitoring

ICT issues

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• there is a multiplicity of tools and it is the occasion and the audience which predetermines what is going to be most effective tool to use. However it is important to examine what has happened to old media in the context of information society and new ICTs...does the use of new ICTs not exclude/marginalize local communities even more eg. how does using internet for public hearings instead of public meetings affect community...
• There are structural issues which are preventing women taking control of technology, what would be the specific responses to the kind of situation presented (e.g. lack of infrastructure,...)

it is not a question of what is most useful/effective technology/communication tool, it depends on the context, but to have choice of tools there are structural issues in terms of what infrastructure would be available which need to be addressed first...

Policy implications

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• Who do we bring to the policy dialog? And do we have to ask one central question, there is probably not only one central question to ask?
• Maybe the challenge is not lack of policy but too much of it. However in the implementation, you do not see community experiences and needs incorporated. So what kind of models we can create to gain better control over the implementation process, and it is probably where the question of dialog, and who to bring in came in..
• Context and power relations are central in analysis of new icts, gender, development..it is why the question of who do we bring to the policy dialog and to what extend they are representing diverse contexts is so critical
• It is important to shift the perspective of media from means communication to an important public site and objective you want to achieve
• If we advocate for public infrastructure are we going to advocate for it within government or private sector...decision with whom we lead dialog is also affected by our locations (e.g. values, beliefs, political perspectives...)
• we need to understand what are the limits of particular strategies, and build on strength of different strategies and merge/combine them to have better reach, outcome and building.

Panel 3: Globalisation and the Information Society Context

Issues raised:

• Indicators – mixture of ICTs and diminishing of geographical boundary
• ICTs and globalisation shapes each other – access, content, sexual exploitation, work etc.
• Advancement in ICTs made globalisation possible (e.g. multinational corporatisation of banks, clothing etc) – enables everything to be traded in an instant. And globalisation makes knowledge & IS possible.
• Although broader social movement is challenging globalisation (e.g. WSF), not many social movement actors are looking at role of ICTs serving as a driving force in globalisation.
• Discourse of knowledge as main capital (heart of globalised society)
• There are different types of globalisation.
• Effect – cultures homogenised
• Main manifestation - global integration, national barriers to external trade and finance dismantled, national deregulation and re-regulation to facilitate this process
• Virtually no global regulation of transnational capital (as seen through SEA financial crisis)
• Neoliberal policies make globalisation possible – policies no longer serve the collective and the public, but the individual
• 70s to 90s, off-shoring of blue collar work (manufacturing sector), 90s to now, off-shoring of white caller jobs (service sector, e.g. call centres)
• Creation of level of education for capacity building on low end service sector work, e.g. call centres
• Look at globalisation from the lens of IS, i.e. IS as a dimension for analysis of globalisation, which could enhance the cultural dimension on the critique of globalisation.

Gender dimension:

• Women act as shock absorbers for negative impact of globalisation (e.g. care work in privatisation of hospitals), voluntarily or forced to.
• Women creating surplus of globalisation in different ways – some upward movement in economy, most are impacted through job losses, acquiring jobs in low skilled, low pay sectors, movement of labour to cheaper countries, displacement from traditional occupations, involuntary and distress migration, no job security (trade-able jobs)
• Women are in low level work (e.g. at BPOs, home based tech work), reflective of IT training and education patterns (large number of women enroll in comp studies, but rarely take comp science, programming and engineering)
• Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) work focuses on self-denying cultural aspects – pressure is to acquire accents and name that Americans and Europeans can identify with – and is boring and stressful. This employment trend referred to as a dumbing down of a generation. Work is boring and stressful. Burn out syndrome. Benefits to women in such employment are higher than the cost.
• Salaries women receive in BPO firms up to 80% lower than what they’d receive in US or Europe.
• Home based tech work is worse off than call centres, with lower wages, under insecure contracts (if at all). Benefit from flexibility of being able to work translates to multiple burdens of women becoming more defined as jobs are performed in addition to standard domestic work. Need to make substantial investment (buy equipment, connectivity).
• No countries in Asia able to expand manufacturing sector without bringing women into the work force. Comparative advantage sold through a more docile, better women workforce etc.
• Export of low-skills services under rhetoric of development, but no laws are passed to protect their rights.
• Women often not allowed to unionise in formal or informal ways.
• No systematic effort in national and international bodies to understand stresses on women & globalisation. Don’t know what work, where, conditions, wage levels, security in jobs in globalised economy, esp. in ICTs.
• Case study, WomenInk (IWTC project), initiative to address globalisation of information production and distribution (most books on women’s studies and feminism available are by authors in US/Europe) and undermined by new ICTs. Make visible books written by, for and about women in global South available in global market. Now online sites (e.g. Amazon) and big corporations (e.g. K-Mart) selling titles at cheaper prices, project impacted. Need more creative, systematic and coherent collective action.
• What are new opportunities of work for women, and what kinds of women’s work opportunity is being lost due to spread of IS?

Policy implications:

• Policies need to be thought structurally in terms of who they affect and how, and be responsive to the rights of women.
• How compatible are neo-liberal policies and regime (choice and individualism) with women’s rights and empowerment?
• Global governance framework and spaces: WSIS I & II (gender included but as lowest common denominator), Commission on Science, Tech & Development (how UN system itself implemented work on ICT post-WSIS), GAID (broaden dialogue of harnessing ICTs for development), IGF, Helsinki process & DAW (initiated efforts in enabling national machineries of women to make use of ICTs to make work more efficient and effective).
• How to make use of policy development space to discuss issue of globalisation and ICTs role.
• Assuming neoliberalism caused by political forces is reversible by changing neoliberal policies to national ones, but the information society is not a reversible process. So policy response can’t just be about going back to national policy framework. What can a gender response be?
• Gender activist is about claiming our geopolitical spaces in IS. Our rights to influence/develop policies/ technologies produce/distribute media in ways that serve our interests, in ways that would challenge new forms of feudalism or patriarchy.
• State and Capital – can’t be the only 2 choices. Global governance is needed because thus far, global regulatory bodies on economy and security have not been equitable.

Panel 4: Institutional Change and Citizenship in the Information Society

Uajit Virortrairatt

• ICT – medium/channel that promote citizenship to have power and participation in self, community, country determination
• Thailand – broadcasting media is most powerful, prefer to consume than read
• 600 radio stations all over the country, 80% entertainment and the rest political parties
• Free TV Media
• 3 years project
• Share of audience high for TV station that airs entertainment stuff

• UNIFEM project – training for candidate and for elected, to empower women to become local politicians.
• Community radio is a movement,
• Less proportion in negotiation on role of the movement, more on coordination, facilitation
• Not just capacity building on skills, but critical thinking on social issues, public policy, power exercise on civil politics etc
• Important to advocate and strengthen women in civil politics and civil power in self determination

Sumi Krishna

• WSIS, in the prep, invited to be part of e-discussion group. Found it very irritating, because very un-gendered
• Wrote something in, got lots of response, also thinking it, just didn’t know how to say it
• Assumption that neutral is neutral and that it’s a tool. Should not see approaches to women and technology as to be the same, even amongst feminists or people concerned with women and tech. Some will see tech is neutral, some romancing on women’s technology (IP?)
• Manner in which tech is socially constructed. Typewrite keyboard, put all pressure on left hand, TWG keyboard, in West, all secretarial work on women, no one thought of how this was inconvenient and how it’s organised. Now a lot of talk about how the keyboard be framed differently (since guys have a hand in inputting data).
• Paradigm shift between conventional media and new media, need to look at the synergy. Between different mediums. E.g. singing songs from film broadcasted on TV, express opinion through SMS and cell phone, at the same time, the social structure present also
• While initially a lot of exchange in the group (mailing list), open and quick sharing, gradually proportion of men increased (and unknown people, original group knew each other) – tone and style of communication different – more conflicts, structured/formal etc. Same socialization processes that we have undergone and inbuilt and in this medium.
• Recasting citizenship for development. Concept of citizenship earlier seen as civil, political and econ rights, now need to take into account livelihood and development. Development can be seen from a citizenship angle, and understanding of citizenship can be depend through development perspectives
• ICTs – common property resource – how can this be managed? Management of this knowledge, construction, sustainability etc – all of these issues also apply.
• ICTs can be used in subversive ways, there is a certain amount of transparency, and excitement, dissemination becomes much cheaper
• Has to be linked to civil and political rights – not just women’s rights.

Moderator:

• Change of power structures
• Shaping ICTs that can lead to power shifts
• Changing notion of citizenship, people who no longer live where they started from, e.g. migrant workers, technology an important part of connecting/communicating with back home in very important ways. Idea of citizenship rights, look beyond – supra citizenship rights, citizenship of the humanity, rights bestowed on you no matter where you are. Rights beyond rights as citizenship in terms of national boundaries.
• Right to participate in policy is a basic citizenship right. Extend this to communication? Can we look at this as another resource? Knowledge is a resource. Traditional knowledge – not static – created over a period of time and space which is changing. In 70s, a lot of people say same things about conventional media.
• South of Thailand, had wireless tech, funder in Germany invite for meeting, community radio, South of Thailand to join in, community radio should be somewhere where people can talk about themselves apart from the violent situation. When right to talk over microphone is not enough, need to cultivate the culture of content producers and people to have the listening culture – to listen to each other.
• Did not speak about supra-citizenship, rural level is more internal. Cases of migrant people, living on sandbanks in river. Citizenship is more urgent for migrants who had no “home” to go back to (come from poorest part of Bangladesh)

Day 2: 6th October 2007

Open Space:

Reflecting on research imperatives for policy advocacy on gender, development and the information society and on advocacy strategies to be taken forward in global and sub-global arenas.

Facilitator: Chat Garcia Ramilo

Reporting back by four thematic groups:

Group 1. Advocacy for Gender Sensitive ICT Policies

Name of initiator: Berna Ngolobe Name of participants: Margaret Zunguze Claudia Morrell

Highlights of discussions:

• Macro: International ICT for Development orgs. or multilaterals or intergovernmental organisations
• Meso: National and regional
• Micro: not included

Where from here/ action points:

• Identity key issues globally from statistical data on the ground
• Create a framework for comparison of key issues country by country/region by region
• Review current international and regional gender and ICT declarations for support and promotion at the international and national level
• Develop a framework for gender analysis of ICT policies and gender or review current frameworks for possible adoption/adaptation (could be used for funding)
• Create a international policy pressure group to support local and national initiatives (need to identify current groups doing this) for women and ICT issues

Who could assist? APC WNSP, AP-WINC, APC_AAW, others UNIFEM, CWIT, WOUGNET, Genderlinks

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Group 2. Engendering Civic Politics Using ICTs

Name of initiator: Sejal Dand and Uajit Virojtrairatt Name of participants: Margaret   Anita

Highlights of discussions:

• Community multimedia centres at village level

Where from here/ action points:

• Policy recommendation for resource allocations
• Documenting models empowering women's communities
• Exploring ICT partners to invest in alternative architectures/set of processes and institutional mechanisms

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Group 3. Feminist Framework Building and the Information Society

Facilitated by: Susanna George, Isis International – Manila Documenter: Tesa de Vela Name of participants: Berna Ngolobe, Parminder Jeet Singh, Shireen Huq, Sally Burch, Cecilia Sardenberg, Simrita Gopal Singh, Leelangi Wanasundera, Therese Niyondiko, & Yong Ja Kim

Highlights of discussions:

Initial talks

• Cecilia: Work inside and outside feminist spaces
• Parminder: Nature of IS sites is that the change very quickly that feminist may have difficulty with

The nature of a framework is that it is an analytical tool

• Therese: New in feminist movement, maybe we can define what we mean by feminism

Leveling off on what we mean by feminism

• Cecilia: Struggle against patriarchy ad other discriminatory and exclusionary practices e.g. racism, classism, homophobia, etc.
• Sally: Social structures
• Shireen: A philosophy and political position that countering norms of male dominance
• Leelangi: Trying to find alternatives to male dominance
• Simrita: Addressing issues like the sexual division of labour where gender crosses with class issues. A kind of intersectionality
• Parminder: Addressing the structures is how we can address patriarchy
• Susanna: Need to recognize that all people, even feminist are gendered and acting based on that.
• Parminder: Complexities of feminism in practice
• Tesa: Feminism is about celebrating our diversity
• Cecilia: In feminism, the personal is political
• Sally: A political proposal for the whole of humanity

Initial points for looking at the information society from feminist frameworks:

• Tesa: Wanting to use feminism and develop it as a way of looking and understanding the information society
• Susanna: Interrogating assumptions e.g. notion of stakeholders as a unified voice in WSIS. Feminist are the ones who will be brave enough to say “the emperor has no clothes”.
• Simrita: For any feminist forum we need funding. How do we ensure the promotion of these frameworks? I think it is easier to do so in national forums than in international forums.
• Therese: Somewhat agree with Simrita’s point on national being more critical than international forums for feminist framework building.
• Shireen: I wonder if we are not fetishising ICT
• Simrita: Need to look at how grassroots women are participating in the international spheres. Need to not subvert national agenda with international agendas.
• Susanna: But what we have is a transnational borderless society. As such we need to have a level of advocacy in the transnational level.
• Cecilia: Feminist framework on the Information Society is about looking at women’s empowerment. Gender and empower are key concepts in this. Re-politise gender and power relations, and put power back in empowerment.
• Susanna: Lobbying includes lobbying other feminists.
• Tesa: Ambivalence and not knowing or being sure about our views can be useful for feminist framework building.
• Sally: Feminist framework building is about participation and decaffeinated democracy

Nature of feminist collaboration work:

• Parminder: Framework as a tool for understanding and for engagement. But we cannot delay the need of the moment to engage which may not wait for us to derive our feminist framework. We could look at the existing frames that are useful and can be interpreted from our feminist stance.
• Susanna: I understand the sense of urgency but feminist need to look at the strategic value of its engagement.
• Tesa: I believe in temporal unities and short-term agendas. So I somewhat agree with Parminder.
• Sally: We need to build alliance given we are up against big monsters.
• Susanna: Very important for us to have the principles.
• Sally: Need to look at developing feminist leadership in those spaces.
• Leelangi: Yes we need to have alliances but there should be some sort of bottom line for the basis of these alliances.
• Shireen: Need to distinguish between coalitions and alliance. Coalitions are more long-term. Alliance can be more short-term.

Where from here/ action points

• Working on a fluid feminist framework for working on is policy
• Develop bottom-line principles for feminist praxis in the information society
• A further sharpen our feminist understandings of the information society
• Need to be well equipped with the debates within the information society phenomenon
• Run a skills building/capacity building workshop on gender analysis in development focusing on information society
• Do a kind a assessment of the environment from a feminist view
• Introduce these issues as a feminist agenda
• Start up a database directory of women’s groups working on these issues

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Group 4. Content regulation of the internet

Name of Initiator: Jac sm Kee Name of Participants:   Namita Malhotra Avri Doria Mavic Cabrera-Balleza Chaitali Sinha Gurumurthy K Chat Garcia Ramilo Katerina Fialova Jac sm Kee

Highlights of discussion:

• Spaces for policy intervention: ICANN, IGF, community of practitioners
• Mapping different groups who want to influence media/content regulation: who, why, where and to what effect? (e.g. ISP, filtering software companies, faith based groups, child protection groups, women’s groups, self-appointed justice groups, communication rights groups etc)
• Shifting paradigm of analysis in pornography from depiction to consent of actors. Problematising consent.
• Broad understanding of content regulation  censorship & also access to knowledge (e.g. publicly funded content must be in public domain?)
• Strategies in policy intervention: responding to what different groups are advocating, making a stand, having a set of concrete recommendations?
• Greater need to understand the arena of content production, regulation & censorship: infrastructure, technically, players, etc
• Greater need to know and analyse content production process for pornography in different contexts (not just U.S.A.): who is putting it online, who is filtering, how is it produced, is consent real, how can knowledge built around sex work etc enrich this analysis?
• Models of regulation – self regulation by media practitioners (e.g. AMARC – community radio), codes of conduct etc. Self regulation by whom? Users, content producers, technology developers, disseminators?
• IGF – history, where it’s going from here, some current developments (e.g. proposal that host country sits as co-chair to advisory group and what that means)

Where to go from here:

• Collaborative research on:
  • Models of content regulation in different media and contexts
  • Mapping different players interested in influencing media (who, why, impact, etc)

Thicker description of how pornography works (production process? In different countries)

Who could assist? AMARC IDRC CREA General agreement that participants of the discussion are interested to work around this

Day 3: 7th October 2007

Sharing of the findings of the Pre-Workshop Survey by ISIS International-Manila

Presenter: Tesa de Vela
The purpose of the survey was to link where we are coming from to where we are now and what we can build on. Participant responses to the survey questions were compiled by ISIS International – Manila, and are listed below:

What do you think are the critical issues in information society (IS) policy advocacy work?
A. Critical issues for policy:

• infrastructure and access to ICTs
• access to information and communication rights (freedom of expression etc.)
• capacity building and knowledge building
• need for critical ICT resources
• quality of content or information (should be pro-women)
• policy information at local levels
• gender mainstreaming in policies
• strategic use of ICTs for development

B. Critical issues for the network:

• need to construct a gendered policy framework
• develop a strategy for gender inclusion
• address lack of gender and ICT data and analysis
• create awareness on gender
• training on gender analysis (many frameworks currently exist – or develop our own)

What are your organisation's experiences in global feminist collaboration work?
A. Successes in collaboration

• a common goal
• a clear framework
• a clear system of working – modalities, protocol meetings, task lists, division of labou, an activity agenda, systematic quidelines, a timeline, planning and coordination,
• shared values: trust openness, dedication , volunteerism, eagerness to collaborate
• plurality of participation – richness of perspectives sharpens analytical frames, complementarity, working with ppl with not gender advocates
• space for debate and discussion

B. Failures in collaboration

• lack of consensus or common goal – lack of common project – different issues, on meaning of gender or how gender to be located
• lack of a framework – lack of conceptual framework esp withen working with other social movements
• lack of clarity in ways of working – ground rues and principles
• lack of transparency and accountability – limited or vague access to info and processes within the network- no clear or deliberate processes of internal or external accountability
• lack of shared values
• ownership issues – no politics of solidarity to addess ownership issues and representation issues
• lack of funds
• little space for debate and discussion

What strategies has your organisation employed to engage in policy spaces (whether governmental, intergovernmental, or civil society spaces)?
A. Most effective strategies

• a clear position paper or common statement
• a new analytical lens
• a working group that articulates feminist perspectives
• consensus building – discussion groups, e-lists, etc.
• focusing policy efforts
• media/visibility
• identifying critical points for policy intervention
• research and publications (part of policy making continuum)

B. Least effective strategies

• positioning women as victims
• lack of constituency building
• lack of holistic approaches to change – inability to articulate connections or linkages across issues, strategies and levels of action
• spaces that do not feed into policy-making – isolated policy discussion spaces
• inability to identify critical points of intervention (critique without action)
• negotiating without pressure or mobilization
• single petition letters/statements
• inability to identify strategic issues

DISCUSSION

Anita: Leadership is an important issue here.

Magaly: One of things we have to address with respect to leadership is intergenerational dialogue. I have experienced some obstacles to leadership in this area, because it’s difficult to speak about ICTs as a priority issues, and it’s also hard to negotiate with other older established feminists and to create your own space in the debate.

Simrita: It’s problematic if people begin to feel that it’s only the older second wave of feminists who will carry the work forward. We tend to patronize younger women, especially in India. There is the idea that there should to be respect for experience, and if you’re old, it means that you’re full of wisdom. But we have to be willing to hand over leadership to younger people, whether in a forum, platform or organization, with the principle of mutual respect.

Tesa: The younger generation might be more inclined to take on ICTs as an issue than older generations, or be able to offer more insights and perspectives on this issue.

Therese: Can we clarify what we mean by ownership?

Mira: This refers to who owns the network, who represents the network, who takes the lead, who decides? If you feel you are part of the network, you are more likely to engage and take on a leadership role.

Simrita: Ownership might also refer to the dynamics of collaborative work – research, projects etc, and who can use these.

PANEL: Global Feminist Collaboration for Advocacy – What Works and What Doesn’t

CHAIR: Tesa de Vela, Associate Director, ISIS International - Manila, Philippines

Mavic Cabrera-Balleza:

• On ethics and protocol, this meeting should be a safe space, as we are trying to draw lessons from our experiences, but not all of these are positive.
• I have worked with IWTC and AMARC, so my experience in collaboration represents two varied spaces (one all women, one a mixed gender group)
• IWTC does not identify as a feminist organisation. Not all the collaboration we engage in is defined as a feminist space. This is strategic. We seek broad participation, and some groups do not want to engage when you define the collaboration or initiative as feminist.
• On principles or issues: one is that in our engagement in global or regional collaboration, we have to do internal advocacy. We are always at risk of making assumptions when we work in progressive spaces - not all aspects are progressive. Not always beautiful and gender fair. The discrimination of mainstream media is also reproduced in progressive media organizations. We have to be aware of this.
• In womens coalitions, we have to advocate to draw importance of media and ICTs – Women’s organizations often think of ICTs as a tool and not an advocacy issue.
• Issue of representation and tokenism – for example: we had a meeting with Kofi Annan on UN reform and the UN gender architechture. We had to have representation from all regions, but there were no funds to invite all regions to send representatives. So there were more North Americans, and in that space, I was very much needed for an appearance of international representation. While this was an opportunity, I felt used. These are things we have to contend with in international advocacy.
• Leadership, representation and visibility are closely linked
• Who leads, who gives the mandate, who speaks
• The person who introduces the issue is seen by all UN agencies, INGOs, and funders as the leader in this space – this determines who will get the resources to take the mission forward – we have to confront these issues
• Another issue is multi generational discussion/spaces
• at CONGO, there were many senior women activists who were happy that young women are engaging with the UN. To them, the mere expression of interest invigorates the movement. But what is the agenda of these young women? To them it’s a career. Working with an activist organization is a stepping stone to working with the UN – it’s not activism, but a career path. This is an issue.

Susanna George:

• Audrey Lourde and the use of the master’s tools to fight against the master
• Vitally important for feminists to be present in international policy negotiations.
• DAWN has made important critiques of neoliberal policies. There have also been other groups working on related issues.
• Reassessing feminist political agendas – has had three decades of engagement in UN spaces and development terrain. Efforts are not homogenous. Those efforts in the women’s movement (recognising the diversity of actors), interventions have for the most part been in the nature of coming to the lowest common denominator. We need to rethink the way we proceed from such spaces.

Observations:

• • Historically, progressive social movements have viewed feminists with some suspicion. It is time to reassert the feminist political agenda from feminist analysis, using feminist practice and principles.
  • Women have different entry points. It’s crucial not to assume commonalities, and to desist firmly demands by donors/ governments to present simplified statements about women’s needs.
  • Our ‘trained canter’ in UN spaces – we don’t do anything natural there. It’s time to cut through the histrionics of the UN. There’s some more room to speak in spaces such as this.
  • The way we do our advocacy – feminists have used creative strategies and we must continue to do so.

Trans-national feminism:

• It’s a time for us to re-look at how feminists network. Women’s groups have networked before the IS phenomena. Feminist networking is not an IS phenomena. It is 30-40 years old and the urge comes from a very old form of strategy building. ISIS had an old database of organisations that can be pulled together depending on the parameters.
• explore the notion of moving beyond brown/yellow/black/white – every time we present our views. Need to go beyond grouping spaces and come together based on political and ideological reasons. There are multiple identities within state borders. The entities we are struggling against are trans-national in nature and so we need to refine our ways based on the vantage point.
• Power relations exist in networks that reveal the contradictions in feminist practices. Young feminists become disillusioned with our hierarchical ways of working. Need to build on core principles of shared working and values.
• Need to look for allies in our struggle but not forget the bottomline of our principles.
• If we find ourselves creating hegemonies then someone must bravely point it out and find resonance with others.

Magaly Pazello

• experiences in WSIS gender caucus beginning in 2002 and ending in 2005. it arose out of a crisis I think and I will talk about how to work on this kind of crisis
• In the beginning it was created to promote gender integration and women's rights in the WSIS process – an innovation created in Bamako Mali by 22 organisations.
• the self-definition – multi stakeholder group of women and men to ensure gender equality objectives of WSIS and its outcomes and exclude gender bias and blind-ness
• we felt that the language used was a step backward. We had to start by putting the word 'women' there
• the organisational structure included a steering committee, secretariat and members – the leadership proposed a very hierarchical, institutionalised structure – and so when I came in I felt that it wasn't a caucus in terms of a place for dialogue and building alliances
• Within this space, we had financing management team, advocacy team, research, regional coordinators – but the work was too much for the size of the members.
• The structure was towards documents, synthesis papers, statements for plenary sessions, commissioned research, submissions for other CS sites and bureaus. Interestingly, ALL CS groups had organised themselves along the structures of the government and this is problematic.
• Achievements – research leading to a book in Phase 1. Connections with key players. Because of a crisis in the caucus, we had to split and start a working group that was based on like-minded people who could push the gender language and advocacy – and so the achievements were possible because the NGO’s working group put in some hard work.

  What didn't work?

• • Multi stakeholder process didn't work. There were outsiders and insiders amongst members.
  • the accountability system was never clear, but my position is that we should never be afraid of raising accountability because a good system can lead to solidarity amongst us
  • engagement of women's organisations in other arenas of IS work or other development areas – we were not able to get them in
  • lack of capacities to support the caucus

In the end, there was an expectation to continue, but the project was never revised after WSIS. The website data got lost. And the research outcomes of the 2nd Phase was never published. The synergies were just left between those people who had worked together before. Analysis: multistakeholder approach/ bureaucracy/ lack of discussion on key issues/ difficulties to maintain dialogue with organisations and other players/ improvement of feminist participation.

Chat Ramilo

• I have four points to share from APCs 15 years of experience based on what resonates with other feminist practices:
• The feminist movement is at a stage of reflection and re-examination of women's politics
• In many cases, we have shared principles and values but really when you are in the moment of alliance building, you face a test of how you practice the collaboration.
• Feminists talk about recurrent themes - involving young women; looking after ourselves while dealing with the work pressure; diversity; wielding power and leadership; making money and managing resources; etc

Four stories:

• How the women's networking was born in APC. Most of our original members were ISTs – mostly geeks who were in love with technology and working with NGOs. No notion of gender. In 1992, a group of women felt the need to involve and serve the needs of women as an advocacy platform in the environment sector. There were many difficulties to get support and so women volunteered time.
• Creating autonomous and safe spaces for women
• Organisations are also about valuing institutions and also valuing individuals and not creating hierarchies.
• As we became more involved in WSIS, we started working more with male colleagues and it was a long process that brought women's advocacy closer to the member organisations. And by 2004, gender was a cross cutting element.
• feminist collaboration involves working in several spaces and it gets tiring... it re-creates the double/triple burden. And we don't have enough support outside the movement.
• We need to get out of our comfort zones of working just in the women's programme and engage in other spaces. Specially in this field, where there are not many of us and so we need to learn to navigate other social movements.

• Moving back and forth between two constituencies – trying to engage the women's movement and the advocacy within the IST community. We have to work very separately in each of these. The difficulty is that there is very little shared spaces and learning between these separate streams.

• There are criticisms of Beijing but the point is that the network was able to reach out to the larger women's movement and so when the summit started, there was a core organisations that wanted to take the advocacy to the summit.
• In the gender caucus as well, we wanted to work together and the intention was there but the failure was that APC and other NGOs left the collaboration and started working separately and so we lost a chance in the 2nd Phase of the Summit. And so gender advocates who worked so tirelessly across the globe and went through the entire process, were left without a strong network and a continued common agenda after the WSIS process. And we are feeling it now.
• The lesson is knowing when to disengage and this was not an easy decision. We wondered why gender activists get together and unite. There were all these differences and no culture of trust – not just from those who set it up, but everyone had accountability in the outcomes. And its important to look at ourselves when we work in collaboration and in how we deal with differences and conflicts in dealing with power.
• IST issues were not in the feminist movement, and so feminists had to plunge in the deep end because we have to navigate so many constituencies at the same time.
• Engaging women and feminists in technology – we need to revisit that as feminists. There is a case for us to reclaim that – are ICTs really the master's tools? ICTs challenge hierarchies and an area of feminist collaboration is to reach out to women working deep in technology.

Synthesising of points

• collaboration work between mixed groups and women's groups
• feminism to be a political proposal
• the changing nature of transnational networking – organisational structure, modalities
• dealing with power relations based on race, north-south, age, expertise in ICTs
• internal politics – building trust and support
• the politics of funding in setting the agenda, transparency and optimality in use
• need to construct our own language for feminist agenda
• strengthening leadership and networking
• addressing and navigating diversity, difference and the lack of cohesion
• looking after ourselves in the process!

Discussion/ reflection points:

• How power flows within our networks is very relevant within tech-mediated networks.
• The kind of networks that we are able to form is an IS phenomenon
• When we talk about gender, we should understand that it is a feminist term, and it should be clear that we talk about power relations
• We should recognise there is a primary group of focused feminists and a secondary group of those working on gender and ICTs – but we need to work together because the former is a small group and needs the support. Both can't be confused together because they are working towards different purposes.
• Do we have anything worth passing to the next generation of feminists that makes it feasible and plausible for them to take our advice?
• we can't say its a burden to keep track with reality... if we think that technology experts are geeks, then are we gender 'geeks' in the way we see ourselves
• IS is not a male domain – women's role in the process is closed and not visible in history
• as gender is a social construct it is subject to social disputes and struggles – it’s not the technology that determines the way in which a project moves – its the other way around.
• Technology may be developed for a project but it need not be used only for that project. It can even be used to subvert the project. Technology did not push globalisation – it aided in it. And similarly for networking.
• In IS – we aren't talking about ICTs, we are talking about society. ICT specialists put technology into place, and now we have to decide how to adapt it for the society we want to build
• We have to talk about the uncomfortable things else we can never overcome challenges. Technology is a brutal field – women on average work in IT on 5 years after graduation. They experience gender discrimination and women are alone to a certain extent. We need to think about how to support the women within the organisation so that they can transform MNCs and such organisations.
• North-South relations need to be discussed openly and honestly – challenges need to be placed on the table within respect, integrity and appreciation. If we are really going to change the ICT – how are we going to address the development and design of technology.
• Identifying ourselves as a feminist network takes much political will at this point but it's important to do. It's also important for us to understand feminism and use this concept in a way that we demystify, level off and become strategic in the use of the terminology. It's a good time to reinvent the terms and concepts we are working around in relation to the IS.
• We have to de-colonise and de-hegemonise our minds and develop our own tools

Closing Session: Vision of the Network

Hypothesis: There is a need for collaboration on gender and IS policy – YES!

Themes raised: Advocacy for gender sensitive ICT policies Content regulation Engendering civic politics Feminist framework building for the IS*

• primary for setting agenda of the network and the framing of the other thematic areas

Concrete Proposals for Future Action

• Groups will propose concrete recommendations in the next 6 months
• Work on defining our principles for collaborative networking that will address power relations within the network
• Holding regional discussions on gender and the IS
• Work on expanding our network
• Defining clear principles on how we will work
• Defining what our responsibilities are within the network
• Each organisation to identify what it wants to contribute
• Groups to write 2 ½ page concept/position papers on the themes raised
• Examine feminist epistemology and the information society
• Organizers to consider pre-workshop survey results in terms of what has worked (and not worked) in past collaboration work
• Workshop on feminist framework-building on IS (looking at concepts such as citizenship, rights, new form of governance, etc.; beyond “women’s use of technology & ICTs”) with key feminists & IS activists
• Each organisation to write their own position paper on a feminist framework on IS
• An online space where all information can be accessed (e.g., documentation of workshop, papers, etc.)
• A mailing list
• Examine regions and write position papers on regional perspectives of thematic areas and link to a global perspective (or find unifying issues for the network, i.e. a common agenda)
• Quantify survey to determine priorities, possibly by region, etc. for position papers to be representative of the collective (not individual paper-writers)
• Clear set of rules of participation, membership, etc.
• Make “ally” and “partner” distinct and their implications on participation with the network (alliance-building vs. coalition-building)
• Organise basic orientations on the issues and where people can come in
• Share IS frameworks to women’s groups that would be relevant for their context
• An action plan
• Bring in differently-minded people/groups and define their roles in the network
• Define influence this network expects to have which can help frame agenda & thematic papers (e.g., realistic expectations)
• Organisers to use position papers and workshop survey results to write a common position paper and common agenda
• Clarify term/name/label of the “network” and being under the Community of Expertise
• Share organisation’s documents (e.g., evaluation of ICT policies at national level) that may help in framework-building, etc.