Privacy Camp 2020: Technology and Activism
For the 8th edition, Privacy Camp takes “Technology and Activism” as its focus. Over the last decade, digital technologies have played a significant role in activism by mobilising social protests, fostering new forms of civil disobedience, or simply by facilitating the coordination of activist work in the analogue world. Some scholars assigned particular value to the networked nature of cyberspace, arguing that this structure enables people to communicate and take action outside of traditional hierarchical power structures. However, networked information systems also enhance the surveillance power of repressive regimes.
Going beyond cyber-optimist and cyber-pessimist arguments, Privacy Camp 2020 will seek to explore further dynamics in the activist-technology entanglements. Together with activists from diverse fields and scholars working at the intersection of technology and activism, Privacy Camp 2020 will cover a broad range of practices and issues including surveillance, censorship, civic participation in information policy making, social media and political dissent, online civil disobedience, data justice, data activism, commons and peer production, citizen science and more.
Participate!
For this edition, we call for (1) panel proposals and (2) critical making and DIY projects (see further below).
1. Call for Panels
We welcome panel proposals relating to the broad theme of “technology and activism”. We also welcome alternative types of sessions such as workshops or formats with more interaction between the participants than a traditional panel.
We are particularly interested in proposals on the following topics:
• social media and political dissent
• hacktivism and civil disobedience
• critical public sphere and hashtag publics (e.g. #MeToo, #BlackLivesMatter etc)
• data justice and data activism
• commons, peer production, and platform cooperativism
• citizen science
Submission guidelines:
• Indicate a clear objective for your session, i.e. what would be a good outcome for you?
• Include a list of speakers that could participate in your panel (and let us know which speaker has already confirmed, at least in principle, to participate).
• Make it as interactive as possible, think about how to include the audience and diverse actors. Note that the average panel length is 75 minutes.
• Send your proposal (a panel description of max 400 words and a tentative list of speakers) to privacycamp(at)edri.org by 10 November.
Deadline for panel proposal submissions: 10 November 2019 (hard deadline, no extension)
After the deadline, we will review your submissions and will notify you about the selection process before 20 November. Please note that we might suggest merging panel proposals if they are very similar.
2. Call for Makers: Critical Maker Faire at Privacy Camp 2020
We are pleased to invite makers, disruptors, tinkerers, crafters and DIY artists with the aim of bringing even more diverse communities into the conversation on technology and activism. Maker cultures attempt to democratise technology by focusing on production and consumption patterns and citizen engagement in technology design. We seek makers who create with the ethos of counterculture and activism – in distinction from those who align with innovation and entrepreneurship.
We will provide an exhibit space for makers working at the intersection of technology and activism. Makers will be able to engage participants and hold experiments. Possible maker projects may include, but are not limited to: DIY hardware, biohacking tools, wearables, bots, DIY air quality sensors, experiments with glitch and stitch.
If you are interested to submit your work for the Critical Maker Faire, please contact us at privacycamp(at)edri.org before 30 November 2019.
About Privacy Camp
Privacy Camp is jointly organised by European Digital Rights (EDRi), Research Group on Law, Science, Technology & Society at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (LSTS-VUB), the Institute for European Studies at Université Saint-Louis – Bruxelles (USL-B), and Privacy Salon.
Privacy Camp 2020 will take place on 21 January 2020 in Brussels, Belgium. Participation is free and registrations will open in early December.
For inquiries, please contact Andreea Belu at andreea.belu(at)edri(dot)org or Imge Ozcan at imge.ozcan(at)vub(dot)be.