Sachini Perera

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I’m a queer feminist from Sri Lanka. Over the last 15 years, my research, advocacy and activism have focused on a number of different and interconnected areas through a critical feminist lens: technology as a site of power and organizing; the promise and inherent limitations of multilateralism and international law; supporting and leading feminist organizing at national, regional and global levels; resourcing for feminist and social justice movements; and co-creating South feminist analysis on gender, sexuality, expression, pleasure, and bodily autonomy.

I’m the Executive Coordinator of RESURJ, a transnational feminist alliance of younger feminists from the global south. I co-created Delete Nothing, a feminist initiative that documents and responds to technology-facilitated gender-based violence in Sri Lanka. I have an MA in Digital Culture and Society from King’s College London, a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Colombo and was a 2019/2020 Chevening scholar. I was the Co-Chair of the steering group of the Alliance for Feminist Movements. I also served in advisory capacities for the likes of Nebula Fund, Women’s Fund Asia and the W7.

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Papers by Sachini Perera

ICT access for women from the margins : lessons from Sri Lanka

South-based feminist visions for digital media policy in Sri Lanka

Journal of Digital Media & Policy

There is a clear need for digital media policies in Sri Lanka to address violence and promote fre... more There is a clear need for digital media policies in Sri Lanka to address violence and promote free expression, in the context of the espoused vision of a digital Sri Lanka. There is also a need to critically analyse the colonial and neo-colonial hegemonies that are inherent in the modern nation state, civil society and corporations, and how those are perpetuated through the policies they create and implement. This article proposes grounding media studies in our communities and centres the experiences of Melony, a cisgender crossdressing gay sex worker, who finds himself belonging/nonbelonging in the state’s vision for a digital Sri Lanka and the accompanying neocolonizing ideologies of social media platform companies.

Thesis Chapters by Sachini Perera

Platform Intermediation of Sri Lanka's Covid-19 Response

Covid-19 is the first global pandemic of its scale to have happened in a platform society. All ov... more Covid-19 is the first global pandemic of its scale to have happened in a platform society. All over the world, platforms began to play a key role in addressing the pandemic and this was no different in Sri Lanka. Although internet access and usage is low in Sri lanka, with only 34% internet penetration (ITU, 2017) and only 40% of the population with digital literacy (ITU, 2017), the immediate aftermath of the pandemic saw a number of platform mediated responses. Some of these responses were aimed at disseminating timely and accurate information about the outbreak in Sri Lanka while most were responses to the 3-month long Covid-19 lockdown that was enforced through an islandwide curfew. These were initiated by a variety of actors such as the state, private companies, individual citizens, academia, media, and others. This dissertation explores the platform intermediation of the Covid-19 response in Sri Lanka amounts to platform urbanism and inquires whether platform urbanism during a crisis can reshape public values and perceptions, and power dynamics between the state, private companies and citizens. It does so through a repository of platform-mediated responses during the lockdown and a content analysis of tweets in reference to selected responses. This research finds that platform urbanism during a crisis reinforces neoliberal policies and worldviews that conflate economic value with public value. It also finds that a lot of scholarship on platforms continues to be framed within the Global North with a focus on global platforms, contributing to a world-making that is othering the realities of the Global South and developing countries.

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Sachini Perera

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Thesis Chapters by Sachini Perera

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