11-16, 11:30–13:00 (Asia/Beirut), The Beyond
Participants, who will be rights defenders in the fields of Cyber security, Journalism and Gender and Sexual diversity, who identify as Queer/ non-heternormative individuals, will get to have a peer discussion that is political, personal, and stirring our collective and individual critique to the discourses and politics of surveillance.
After explaining the aim of the roundtable, there will be a declaration and consensus on the terms of the roundtable: no recording, no discussion with other peers about the content of the roundtable, no commenting on the person’s narrative, and that I will be taking written notes on this roundtable. The notes will only state the person’s field of work, no other identifications.
The introduction will be followed by an interactive survey with questions about cyber usage and demography.
The results will be shared with everyone, then we will be moving to the roundtable questions, taking turns giving our reflections and anecdotes on the interlace of surveillance, non-heteronormativity, our intimacies and our discourse critique and imaginary, based on semi-informed format of open ended questions.
The aim of the discussion is to take a moment reflect on our intimate human experiences and how it intersects with our work/activism. Moreover, based on our personal experiences, what are the habituations that surfaces? We'll question whether we have normalized the presence of surveillance in our intimate and/or activist discourses. And finally, in the light of this face-off, how does each one think this "really" should change the politics and discourses of our activism/work?
Dina/Joe (Pron. They/He/She) is a queer activist/ researcher, working on LGBTIQ+ Digital Safety and Security, as well as independent researches and articles concerning cyber cultures. They have previously held the position of Holistic Safety and security officer at Mesahat Foundation for Sexual and Gender Diversity (Egypt and Sudan) and currently is working independently, and with other organization with the aim of raising awareness and support related to cyber security. They are avid coffee drinkers, with an appetite for long discussions on feminism, mobilization, cyber cultures, poetry and design.