Movement Building in Racialized Operating Systems | A Small Group Session with Rachel Kuo

In the midst of expanding carceral legislation, anti-immigrant sentiment, and border militarization, the Internet, as the ‘world wide web’, was popularized along with myths of post-raciality and imaginations of open borders. Drawing on archival research of grassroots media and interviews with organizers and movement technologists, this small group session examines the world of political movements alongside ways state development and management of technological infrastructure facilitated racial projects of displacement and disconnection. We will end with a discussion about political values in digital ecosystems; grassroots and media-based organizing strategies; community safety and accountability practices; and alternate possibilities for digital architectures by bringing movement values, principles, and commitments to technological design.

Part of a larger project examining how collective Asian/American politics aimed towards solidarity and coalition emerge across inequalities and racial difference, this session highlights connections between race-making and technological development as a way to think through effective organizing strategies in an unequal digital landscape.

About the Speaker

Rachel Kuo is a scholar and educator in New York City, researching digital media technologies and social movements. She is currently a PhD Candidate at New York University in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication working on a project about Asian American political formations, solidarities, and digital ecosystems. She is a founding member and current affiliate of the Center for Critical Race and Digital Studies and also on the leadership committee for the Asian American Feminist Collective. Her writing on cultural politics and technology has been published in Everyday Feminism, Huffington Post, Open Democracy, Re appropriate, New Media and Society, Journal of Communication, and the Routledge Companion to Asian American Media.

Hosted by Kinjal Dave