Sophie Toupin

Introduction : qu’est-ce que la résistance numérique ?

Revue Possibles, Jun 15, 2021

Что означает понятие «суверенитет» в цифровом мире?

International Organisations Research Journal, 2020

Статья посвящена особенностям употребления понятия «суверенитет» в реалиях цифровизации. Рассматр... more Статья посвящена особенностям употребления понятия «суверенитет» в реалиях цифровизации. Рассматриваемое понятие все чаще используется для описания всевозможных форм независимости, контроля и автономии в отношении элементов цифровой инфраструктуры, технологий и данных. Представленный анализ основывается на результатах предшествующих и текущих исследований (с привлечением специалистов и экспертов), в рамках которых авторы обнаруживают примеры применения понятия «суверенитет» для описания технологических процессов, которые существенно отличаются от деятельности государств. Авторы рассматривают ряд публикаций, чтобы продемонстрировать разнообразие существующих подходов, принятых в рамках различных групп и объединений. Наглядно показано, что хотя в отдельных случаях понятие «суверенитет» используется для установления некой формы коллективного контроля над цифровой информацией и (или) инфраструктурой, возможны и совершенно иные подходы к определению рассматриваемого понятия.

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What Does the Concept of 'Sovereignty' Mean in Digital, Network and Technological Sovereignty?

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2018

In this paper, we are interested in the notion of sovereignty as it is applied to “the digital.” ... more In this paper, we are interested in the notion of sovereignty as it is applied to “the digital.” Indeed, the notion of “sovereignty” has increasingly been used in recent years to describe various forms of independence, control and autonomy over digital infrastructures, technologies and contents. Although the notion of “sovereignty” seems to gain significance in digital discourses and associated scholarly literature, our preliminary analysis shows that while this notion is generally used to assert some form of collective control of digital content and/or infrastructures, the interpretation, subject, means and definition of sovereignty can significantly differ. See here for the published version: Couture, S., & Toupin, S. (2019). What does the notion of “sovereignty” mean when referring to the digital? New Media & Society, 21(10), 2305‑2322. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444819865984

What does the notion of “sovereignty” mean when referring to the digital?

New Media & Society, 2019

This article analyzes how the notion of “sovereignty” has been and is still mobilized in the real... more This article analyzes how the notion of “sovereignty” has been and is still mobilized in the realm of the digital. This notion is increasingly used to describe various forms of independence, control, and autonomy over digital infrastructures, technologies, and data. Our analysis originates from our previous and current research with activist “tech collectives” where we observed a use of the notion to emphasize alternative technological practices in a way that significantly differs from a governmental policy perspective. In this article, we review several publications in order to show the difference, if not diverging ways in which the notion is being conceptualized, in particular by different groups. We show that while the notion is generally used to assert some form of collective control on digital content and/or infrastructures, the precise interpretations, subjects, meanings, and definitions of sovereignty can significantly differ.

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Can Media and Technology Help Make “Another World Possible”? Reflections from the Media@McGill Research Delegation to the 2015 World Social Forum in Tunisia

Canadian Journal of Communication, 2016

This research-in-brief summarizes activities of our research delegation to the 2015 World Social ... more This research-in-brief summarizes activities of our research delegation to the 2015 World Social Forum (WSF) in Tunis, including our participation in two associated events: the World Forum on Free Media (WFFM) and preparatory meetings for an eventual global Internet Social Forum (ISF). The WFFM and ISF provided rich terrain for our delegation to document and study contemporary struggles around communication media and technology issues. We report on these encounters as a way to foreground the many similar opportunities available to Canadian media, communication, and technology scholars at annual WSFs, in particular, the WSF coming to Montréal in August 2016. Notably, the 2016 WSF will be the first forum held since its inception in 2001 outside the global south.

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The Duality of Peer Production

The Handbook of Peer Production

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Chapter 29 – What’s Next? Peer Production Studies?

What's Next?

Be Your Own Peer!

The Handbook of Peer Production, 2020

Feminist chatbots as part of the feminist toolbox

Feminist Media Studies, 2020

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Shaping feminist artificial intelligence

New Media & Society, 2023

This article examines the historical and contemporary shaping of feminist artificial intelligence... more This article examines the historical and contemporary shaping of feminist artificial intelligence (FAI). It begins by looking at the microhistory of FAI through the writings of Alison Adam and her graduate students to enrich the plural histories of AI and to write back feminist history into AI. Then, to explore contemporary examples of how FAI is being shaped today and how it deploys a multiplicity of meanings, I provide the following typology: FAI (1) as model, (2) as design, (3) as policy, (4) as culture, (5) as discourse, and (6) as science. This typology sheds light on the following questions: What does the term FAI mean? How has FAI been shaped over time?

Colonialism, Independence and Digital Technology

by Wendy Willems, Nii Kotei Nikoi, and Sophie Toupin

AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research, 2021

Conventionally, the African continent is largely written out of accounts on technology. If discus... more Conventionally, the African continent is largely written out of accounts on technology. If discussed, technology is often framed as the result of outside influences or the product of technology transfer from the West but rarely are Africans taken seriously as makers or active users of technology (Mavhunga, 2014, 2017). Recent work on race and technology has been useful in highlighting the contribution of Black people to the development of digital technology (McIlwain, 2020) and the creative deployment of technology (Brock, 2020) but has not always engaged extensively with longer histories of racialization and transnational dimensions of Blackness. Ongoing debates on platform imperialism (Jin, 2013) and data colonialism (Couldry and Mejias, 2019) have been important in demonstrating the disproportionate levels of power that global social media platforms continue to wield and the lingering importance of technology in extractive practices. However, these political economy approaches ha...

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The Beautiful Warriors: Technofeminist Praxis in the 21st Century

The Beautiful Warriors. Technofeminist Practice in the 21st Century brings together seven current... more The Beautiful Warriors. Technofeminist Practice in the 21st Century brings together seven current technofeminist positions from the fields of art and activism. In very different ways, they expand the theories and practices of 1990's cyberfeminism and thus react to new forms of discrimination and exploitation. Gender politics are negotiated with reference to technology, and questions of technology are combined with questions of ecology and economy. The different positions around this new techno-eco-feminism understand their practice as an invitation to take up their social and aesthetic interventions, to join in, to continue, and never give up.

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Technological Sovereignty and Social Justice: Exploring the Intersection of Free Software and Indigenous Knowledge

AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research

Questions of independence and sovereignty have long been present with regards to the Internet. In... more Questions of independence and sovereignty have long been present with regards to the Internet. In 1996, for instance, John Perry Barlow published his now well-known “Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace”. Twenty-five years later, notions like “digital sovereignty”, “data sovereignty” and “technological sovereignty” are increasingly used in public debates. This presentation will explore “technological sovereignty” but through the lens of Indigenous perspectives as well as those of social movements inspired by free software activism. These two perspectives seem to share what can be called an anti-hegemonic perspective on technological sovereignty. While they may reinforce each other, they also differ on many perspectives. It is noted for instance that the philosophy of information sharing in free and open-source software might foster the usage and misappropriation of knowledge held by Indigenous communities (Christen, 2012; Gida, 2019). This analysis will prolong a previous s...

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Colonialism, Independence and Digital Technology

by Sophie Toupin and Wendy Willems

AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research

Conventionally, the African continent is largely written out of accounts on technology. If discus... more Conventionally, the African continent is largely written out of accounts on technology. If discussed, technology is often framed as the result of outside influences or the product of technology transfer from the West but rarely are Africans taken seriously as makers or active users of technology (Mavhunga, 2014, 2017). Recent work on race and technology has been useful in highlighting the contribution of Black people to the development of digital technology (McIlwain, 2020) and the creative deployment of technology (Brock, 2020) but has not always engaged extensively with longer histories of racialization and transnational dimensions of Blackness. Ongoing debates on platform imperialism (Jin, 2013) and data colonialism (Couldry and Mejias, 2019) have been important in demonstrating the disproportionate levels of power that global social media platforms continue to wield and the lingering importance of technology in extractive practices. However, these political economy approaches ha...

Feminist chatbots as part of the feminist toolbox

by Sophie Toupin and Stéphane Couture

Feminist Media Studies, 2020

In this short article, we examine the case of the Brazilian Beta Bot set up in 2017 to support th... more In this short article, we examine the case of the Brazilian Beta Bot set up in 2017 to support the efforts of feminists that mobilized against an anti-abortion bill (PEC-181). We argue for the need for feminists to go beyond the mere critiques of algorithms and to pro-actively engage in technological design and practices.

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"Hacking in" Wikipedia Zero in Angola

Canadian Journal of Communication, 2019

Background: A few years ago, a number of people in Angola were banned from editing Wikipedia Zero... more Background: A few years ago, a number of people in Angola were banned from editing Wikipedia Zero because they were concealing large files in the Wikimedia feature, from where the files could be shared in a private Facebook Zero group.

Analysis: To interpret this case study, the concept of “hacking in” is proposed as part of an open media and technological infrastructure.

Conclusions and implications: This short case study focuses on the ways in which users shape media infrastructure. These users tried to bypass the restricted conditions imposed on them first by a technology and a media ecology that increasingly resembles a walled-off garden and second by Wikipedia Zero’s associated discourse, which reinforced its designer’s intentions for the technology.

https://www.cjc-online.ca/index.php/journal/article/view/3417

Contact me for a copy.

Feminist Hacking: Resistance through Spaciality

The Beautiful Warriors: Technofeminist Praxis in the Twenty-First Century, 2019

The article examines feminist hacking practices that have evolved in recent years and their spati... more The article examines feminist hacking practices that have evolved in recent years and their spatial effects. It is first of all through body hacking (hacking the body) that feminist hacking practices have particularly developed. But the enthusiasm for body hacking, a fairly individual practice, is slowly giving way to responses to online violence, since the latter are omnipresent, urgent and collective. It is through collective thinking, years of activism and technical skills that feminist hackers create autonomous feminist infrastructures such as hackerspaces, servers, discussion lists and bots to counter this violence. Finally, this article aims to reveal some of the specificities of feminist hacking by proposing key principles of their practices and spatial effects, including the policy of visibility, the co-production of knowledge, solidarity and awareness of the materiality of technology.

This text is an abridged version of “Le hacking féministe: la résistance par la spacialité,” Bonenfant, M., F. Dumais and G. Trépanier-Jobin, Les pratiques transformatrices des espaces socionumériques, Québec: Presses de l’Université du Québec, 2017. Translation and publication in English with the kind permission of the publisher.

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What does the notion of “sovereignty” mean when referring to the digital?

by Sophie Toupin and Stéphane Couture

New Media and Society, 2019

This article analyzes how the notion of “sovereignty” has been and is still mobilized in the real... more This article analyzes how the notion of “sovereignty” has been and is still mobilized in the realm of the digital. This notion is increasingly used to describe various forms of independence, control, and autonomy over digital infrastructures, technologies, and data. Our analysis originates from our previous and current research with activist “tech collectives” where we observed a use of the notion to emphasize alternative technological practices in a way that significantly differs from a governmental policy perspective. In this article, we review several publications in order to show the difference, if not diverging ways in which the notion is being conceptualized, in particular by different groups. We show that while the notion is generally used to assert some form of collective control on digital content and/or infrastructures, the precise interpretations, subjects, meanings, and definitions of sovereignty can significantly differ. To read the article visit: https://journals.sagepub.com/eprint/CQUJWXQWMDJW3P4T87DU/full or contact me if you require a copy.

Feminist autonomous infrastructures

GISWatch, 2015

In this article, we ask the question where are the feminist tech collectives that design and main... more In this article, we ask the question where are the feminist tech collectives that design and maintain feminist autonomous infrastructures for feminists, queer and trans* people and activists? We also investigate the constitutive elements of feminist autonomous infrastructures. We argue that it consists of the concept of self-organisation already practised by many social movements that understand the question of autonomy as a desire for freedom, self-valorisation and mutual aid.

The article can be read here:
https://www.giswatch.org/en/internet-rights/feminist-autonomous-infrastructures

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