The Center for Media Justice invited a delegation of Black and brown movement organizers, researchers, and technologists to the Data 4 Black Lives conference this past weekend at MIT Media Lab in Cambridge, MA. As an organization that is currently tackling issues like surveillance, carceral tools, internet rights, and censorship, we know that much of today’s movement work is greatly impacted by the digital age we are living in. With this in mind, we held our #DataJustice Lab, a pre-conference convening to hold space with our delegation to think through ways we could bridge research, data, and movement work.
One of the many highlights of our convening included a panel discussion with Nabil Hassein of the #NoNewJails coalition in New York City, Tawana Petty with the Detroit Community Technology Project, Joan Donovan of Harvard University, and Akhil G. of Stop LAPD Spying Coalition. We discussed and strategized around how research uncovered new information that was useful for organizing work – you can watch the discussion here. We also mapped the current landscape of our movements, an exercise that allowed us to discuss priorities, uncover gaps, identify common needs, and challenges.
Delegates additionally identified research topics and areas that are commonly overlooked when determining how data can be used to organize toward liberation. Here’s what they had to say:
Our delegation will reconvene remotely in the coming weeks to further discuss the possible collaborations that were identified during the #DataJustice Lab. The Center for Media Justice hopes to produce a report that outlines key ideas that come out of these conversations.
For more highlights from the lab and the rest of Data for Black Lives, check out our Twitter Moment here.
