Baobaxia

Abstract proposal

Current technology is largely promoted by an infrastructure stuck in a monolithic discursive bubble of automation based on measurement and discretisation (Antoinette Rouvroy) which consequences are as we know it deterritorialisation (Amrute) of work, destruction of solidarity networks, extractivism, and the promotion of occidental military agenda.
"To engage in these continued research efforts requires an expansion of our definitions of white supremacy to include how global flows of capital from US corporations and Silicon Valley structure labor markets and material infrastructures that are part of an oppressive system of digital technological engagements, largely hidden from view in the consumerist model of technology adoption. "

Positioning oneself is the first necessary step to take in not relying on North and South as seemingly empty signifiers, but embrassing the full scope of the situation from a history of economic domination. Confronting the destruction of cultural practices as they are fed into the productivist agenda.
However a Feminist Epistemology considers necessary principles of intra-action (Barad) looking for Apparatuses that are conceived in situation opening ways for contextual interaction. This article will focus on “knowledges” brought by otherwise left behind social groups not necessarily coming from a minority, but often exist under several axis of oppression, which explains their non consideration, as they might form a divergent viewpoint.
I will here take an subjective position in choosing to bring forward the specificities of underepresented media projects, that have been developped by and for specific communities. Rather then examining southern based projects that exist in relation to the dominant model, as Yuri Takhteyev, has explained, this article will expand on difference within the system. This analysis will present the history of important peculiar projects in free software that built infrastructure for specific comunities in Brazil, and work to understand the horizontal and emergmerging spaces they have help to build, within capitalist society. The analysis will start from presenting “Metarecyclagem” where Felipe Fonseca and others have fostered Gambiarra and HiperTropicalProgramacao throughout an important number of independant social and creative groups all over the country. And continue with Baobaxia free software eventually connected network developed to share and preserve the cultural heritage of the remaining afrobrazilian communities. A infrastructure for the Mocambos Network, among them one very specific appropriation through Tecnoxamanism has given rise to a important number of events and performances accross Brazil and Europe.
However as difficulties as political context transforms, in this paper I will also focus not only on relating from the exterior about a southern situation, but also propose to continue an intersectional observation from north to south. Relying on activism and speculative narration to conduct our messages, dealing in solidarity from north to south, sharing experiences language, strategies forming systers networks, on the model of WoC hackers:

"A power fantasy of the oppressed, we subvert traditionally-white-American-centered dystopian narratives by placing WoC hackers as superheroes willing to risk it all for solidarity (our vision of utopia)
Hackers of Resistance (2018).

References:

Barad, Karen. (2007). ‘Meeting the universe halfway: quantum physics and the entanglement of
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Braidotti, Rosi. Bio-Power and Necro-Politics, Reflections on an ethics of sustainability
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Fonseca, Felipe. Reconhecimento e superação da exploração capitalista em redes criativas de colaboração e produção Liinc em Revista, Rio de Janeiro, v.12, n.1, p. 25-39, maio 2016, http://www.ibict.br/liinc http://dx.doi.org/10.18617/liinc.v12i1.86125

Hackers of Resistance (2018). “h0rd14r13z” Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology, No. 13. 10.5399/uo/ada.2018.13.6

Rouvroy, Antoinette & Berns, Thomas. (2013). ‘Gouvernementalité algorithmique et perspectives
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Takhteyev, Yuri. 2012. Coding Places: Software Practice in a South
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Toupin, Sophie & Spideralex (2018). “Radical Feminist Storytelling and Speculative Fiction: Creating new worlds by re-imagining hacking.” Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology, No. 13. 10.5399/uo/ada.2018.13.1

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