Decolonising the Digital Rights Field in Europe Programme
The public consultation on the draft decolonising programme for the digital rights field in Europe has now closed. We’d like to thank all the individuals who generously contributed their time and expertise, providing invaluable feedback. The decolonising the digital rights field process is being taken forward by a new entity Weaving Liberation, hosted by Digital Freedom Fund. Please visit their site to see the full programme and how Weaving Liberation is taking this work forward.
About the Decolonising Digital Rights Field in Europe
Decolonising the Digital Rights Field in Europe was a design process to build a decolonising programme for the digital rights field in Europe. 30 participants from the digital rights field and social, economic and racial justice groups co-designed a programme to address power dynamics in the field and imagine a vision for an anti-colonial digital future.
Find the full summary of the process on DFF and EDRi websites.
Our goal with the decolonising process
Our goal was to initiate a process that challenges the structural causes of oppression such as racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, imperialism, and class inequality to work towards a digital rights field that centers rights and justice for all.
One outcome of this process was to put forward a programme – an ecosystem of initiatives, activities, elements – an agenda, for how to shift power and decolonise the digital rights field in Europe. In the programme, we present some concrete ideas of how to initiate structural change in the digital rights field.
This is the outline draft of that programme: our very first draft and attempt to put to paper the decolonising programme we have collectively designed.
The decolonising process so far
- In 2020, the Digital Freedom Fund (DFF) and European Digital Rights (EDRi) kicked off the Decolonising Digital Rights Field in Europe Process. Initiated by DFF’s founder and former director Nani Jansen Reventlow, the process sought to address the power structures within the European digital rights space, structures impacting field composition, how resources are allocated, how agendas are set, and crucially, why the people most directly impacted by data-driven harms are excluded from the space.
- From June 2021 until December 2022, 30 participants from racial, social, economic justice organisations and digital rights organisations all over Europe and beyond – as well as researchers – worked together to design a programme towards decolonising the digital rights field in Europe. From funding and organisational structures, programmatic development to partnerships frameworks and how public engagement is done, the process working groups worked to identifying what the ideal situation would be, what needs to change, and how to change it. The “how to change it” became the content for the decolonising programme.
- In 2024, a new entity Weaving Liberation was founded within DFF to take the decolonising programme forward. Please visit the Weaving Liberation website to view the decolonising programme and details of Weaving Liberation activities.
Who has been involved so far?
This process has included more than 30 people and roughly 24 organisations working on racial and social justice issues, as well as organisations from the current digital rights field and funders. This outline draft is the product of collective work from those 30 participants, rather than DFF and EDRi. Read about the core participants [here].
Building an imaginative, iterative process
Rarely do social justice movements get the space to reflect, to re-imagine, to rebuild. That’s why this has been such a demanding process, we have been forced – not only to critique our movements – but also try to build otherwise. As in, in the space of a world, or a field, organised with certain power dynamics, what would we put instead? What would that look like? How to create afresh?
We need to resist toxic cultures of objectivity and perfectionism, and instead building comfort with critique, reflection, consultation, and constant iteration. We’ve tried to resist linearity in our process, understanding that our ideas need to be unpacked, unraveled, and built anew, and within that process itself comes the change we hope to see. We look forward to engaging more people in this process through the consultations and ongoing work.
Next steps: future of the process
Our hope is that the fruits of this collective design can continue to engage more people, communities, and organisations, especially those most affected by digital discrimination, surveillance and extraction. While EDRi and DFF have played a role and hope to continue to support the wider process, we acknowledge that EDRi and DFF are not the best placed to lead this process in the long run. For this reason, a new DFF hosted entity, Weaving Liberation, was founded to take the decolonising programme forward.
If you have any further comments or questions, you can write to us at laurence[at]weavingliberation.org or salmana[at]weavingliberation.org.