Strategies Against Digital Colonialism.

Raw data counts as a top-ranking resource that is appropriated through data colonialism. The aim of this project is to think about the anti-colonial struggles of the 1960s using todays feminist strategies against digital colonialism. Stories can form knowledge objects that deepen our understanding of complex matter. This arts- based research transforms (i.e. collects, translates and tags) in-depth interviews and analogue archive materials into an animated documentary that makes sense of the findings. Processing fieldwork through animations and visual art can foster transparency and, at the same time, help to protect the privacy of the citizens interviewed. This arts-based research builds upon Coded Feminisms in Indonesia, my previous project, which raised questions about a particular feminist movement that emerged in Indonesia in the 1960s and grew to become the largest feminist movement of its time. The Indonesian Womens Movement had an international impact through its vibrant grass-roots activism, anti-authoritarian pedagogy and influential anti- imperialist and non-aligned position. Because the movement was criminalized during Indonesias New Order Regime, its legacy is only preserved in encoded form: vital practices such as Turba, subsistence or community-based culture production are still common; and yet, early pioneers rarely get credit. Reclaiming a position within a disrupted history of ideas, young Indonesian activists in media art are now taking a stand against digital colonialism. Do they apply similar strategies? Is Indonesias anti-colonial, feminist legacy still relevant in Indonesia`s critical media scene? Its ambivalent influence on current digital activism has been insufficiently investigated. Therefore, my research aims to contribute to a diffractive reading of feminisms, art and digital activism; and to answer the research question about whether online violence silences to the extent that centralized violence silenced members of the Indonesian womens movement. The fieldwork will be conducted in Yogyakarta, Java, supported by Universitas Sanata Dharma (USD) and Ruang Arsip dan Sejarah Perempuan Indonesia (RUAS), a Space of Women Archives and Herstory. Peer-reviewed paper publications and a book will mark the final conclusion of the project.

No additional funding sources recorded.