Feminist Digital Media Praxis: An Introduction

This special issue ofAdaemerged from several collaborations. It came together from existing networks and led to the making of new ones. Its genesis starts with the workshopQueer Feminist and Social Media Praxis, organised by the Sussex Centre for Cultural Studies at the University of Sussex, in May 2013. Aristea Fotopoulou was invited by Sally Munt to create an event that would link the work of the Centre, in gender and cultural studies, with the work of the annual conference,(Im)possibly Queer International Feminisms, organized by Cynthia Weber, Laura Sjoberg and Heidi Hudson, editors of the International Feminist Journal of Politics. Alex Juhasz came to the UK as invited keynote speaker, and we screenedThe Owlson a special evening, supported by the Centre for Sexual Dissidence at Sussex and Brighton’s independent queer film nightEyes Wide Open Cinema. The film and Q&A session served as points of departure for a problematique that became central during the workshop discussions: the conditions of working and living collaboratively, including desire, ethics and violence. The workshop invited participants to explore a range of themes around mediation and gender/sexuality activism – and particularly how digital technologies, art and social media can present possibilities or impossibilities for social equality. The call for the workshop, and then for this issue, asked participants to engage with the questions: How can we understand the interconnections between radical art practices and cyberfeminisms? What role do science and technology play in shaping social practices and cultural identities? – questions that Alexandra Juhasz, during her keynote presentation, posted on herFeminist Online Spacesblog, and generated responses not only for the workshop participants, but also from Universities that are linked to theFemTechNetDOCC around the world. Expanding and overlapping networks of feminists and queer theorists/activists across local and global scales was not just the cause of the event, and the issue, it was also one of its scopes.