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Are you experiencing Zoom fatigue? In which case you should probably be resting. But once you've rested, please do take a look at this article I wrote about webinars and feminist ways of knowing :) https://sachinip.wordpress.com/2020/06/18/webinars-and-feminist-ways-of-knowing/ #COVID19 #feministinternet
Thank you to @aagrabakijasmin @Nabuels @c5 @nighatdad and @thecatlyf who let me quote their tweets in there and also everyone I've had pockets of conversations about this topic with including @hyshyama @jhybe @VianaMarisa and @idutta88 
I try to answer questions like why webinars and why so many webinars. And ask if we can allow ourselves space and time to first have clarity on why and how we want to create and share knowledge online rather than allow affordances of the tech to guide us: https://twitter.com/hayahz/status/1273939705151860738?s=21 https://twitter.com/hayahz/status/1273939705151860738
I use some of @EmaTigi’s framing of feminist ways of knowing to answer the above questions (thank you! 
). Tigist’s editorial can be read at https://www.genderit.org/editorial/all-you-walk-get-there-how-centre-feminist-ways-knowing
). Tigist’s editorial can be read at https://www.genderit.org/editorial/all-you-walk-get-there-how-centre-feminist-ways-knowing
Picking up this thread where I left off. One of the main questions I have is whether we plan our online knowledge creation and sharing according to what the technology (dis)allows. https://sachinip.wordpress.com/2020/06/18/webinars-and-feminist-ways-of-knowing/
While practical concerns are understandable, do technology affordances make us do things we otherwise wouldn’t do in physical convenings? Whether it's the hierarchy between speakers and listeners or following the same methodologies and formats for every online intervention.
If the platform takes the form of a classroom or lecture, then there’s an assumption that someone who can impart knowledge and has answers to our questions should be speaking. Doing this in every instance can set not-great precedence for feminist ways of knowing.
Access in terms of language, ability, connectivity and devices are another important consideration when we think about who gets to speak and participate in webinars. https://twitter.com/thecatlyf/status/1253531200909488128?s=20
A holistic approach to access is complex and can be difficult to navigate. We need resources and resource sharing. There are hard decisions made trading off one thing for another. But I go back to the questions of why webinars and why so many webinars.
If our online engagements/interventions are not being driven only by visibility and related credibility (and let's face it, we need visibility in order to survive), then there is space to slow down and be imaginative with how we use our limited resources.
More collaborations. Sharing/lending our platforms and resources to groups who can organize events for communities in local languages. Brainstorming and writing down the kind of experience we want our online engagements to be and try to be guided by them than the tech.
However, I propose that more than anything we need a shift in mindset as to how we view and understand time and technology. The disability justice movement has many insights on this. Ellen Samuels on crip time is a good starting point: https://twitter.com/sachp/status/1265894530215292933?s=20
Ellen says crip time “requires us to break in our bodies and minds to new rhythms, new patterns of thinking and feeling and moving through the world.” And I argue that it's crip time that should guide how feminists conceptualize and understand time rather than capitalist values.
I'd love for us to consider this example by @thecatlyf and think about the last time we were able to engage with others at this pace, online or otherwise. What needs to change within ourselves, our organizations/movements and society to get here? https://twitter.com/sachp/status/1273599629351944193?s=20
Srinidhi frames crip time as “community time” and I think this is key to us creating spaces for feminist knowledge creation and sharing that are true to intersectional feminist praxis. https://www.firstpost.com/living/the-value-of-crip-time-discarding-notions-of-productivity-and-guilt-to-listen-to-the-rhythms-of-our-bodies-8440551.html
The other way we can (un)learn is through design justice which is grounded in Black feminist thinking, feminist ethics of care, indigenous approaches to design, disability justice, etc. @praymurray and @schock are people whose work constantly challenges me (in a v good way).
. @schock says we must ask if any affordance in design (including technology/platform design) is equally perceptible and available to all people or “whether it systematically privileges some kinds of people over others”.
These questions are useful in order to critically evaluate the (dis)affordances of webinar platforms (or any other platforms and technology we use for our online engagements) and make choices to use, misuse or not use them according to our own values and contexts.
Some chapters of Sasha's book are available on open access if you're interested in learning more: https://design-justice.pubpub.org/
However, our use of any of these approaches goes back to my original question. What do we want to achieve from our webinars or anything else we do online and who do we want to reach? These discussions/ consciousness raising should happen with finance teams, donors, etc. too.
