Photo by Carl Kho on Unsplash [https://unsplash.com/pt-br/fotografias/uma-foto-em-preto-e-branco-de-um…]
Challenging the systems that keep people disconnected means unsettling the political and economic dynamics that benefit from that disconnection. Around the world, communities are pushing back against a model of technological expansion driven by extraction, profit and control, like mining that is costing lives of thousands of people in places like the Democratic Republic of Congo, data centres that strain water and energy systems, and platforms that concentrate power while silencing dissent. At the same time, many states seek to tighten their control on communication networks, restricting speech and access in order to maintain authority over people’s rights.
Feminist movements and community-led grassroots initiatives remind us that another approach is possible that is rooted in organising collectively, sharing knowledge, and building technologies rooted in care, autonomy and solidarity, as they have the ability to disrupt the status quo and create space to imagine different digital futures. These are futures where connectivity is not a privilege reserved for a few, but a shared resource that supports communities on the frontlines of environmental harm and political exclusion to speak, organise and shape the worlds they deserve.
This edition brings together stories and reflections from those efforts. It asks what it means to reconnect technology with the needs of communities facing environmental upheaval, and how feminist approaches to technology can help reshape who gets to connect, communicate, and organise when it matters most.
Find out more in the articles in this issue:
- Connectivity is political: Feminist futures in a world of climate collapse and digital divides
This editorial frames connectivity as a political issue shaped by climate crises and structural inequalities, where access to communication determines survival, visibility, and safety. It highlights how digital divides disproportionately affect marginalised communities, particularly women and LGBTQIA+ people, and argues these are outcomes of political and economic choices rather than technical gaps.
- Natural disasters are revealing the impact of digital divide on vulnerable communities in the Philippines
This article examines how natural disasters in the Philippines expose deep digital inequalities. Focusing on Typhoon Haiyan, it shows how damaged communication infrastructure left communities struggling not only to survive, but to access aid systems dependent on digital verification. It highlights how digital access is critical to survival, recovery, and recognition in crisis contexts.
- Feminist repair labs reclaiming technology in an era of climate breakdown
This article explores how feminist repair labs across the Global Majority reclaim technology as a practice of care, resilience, and climate adaptation. Starting from e-waste sites like Agbogbloshie in Ghana, it frames repair spaces as grassroots responses to extractive tech economies. These labs help sustain connectivity during crises while promoting collective knowledge and environmental responsibility.
- Making space for the unkind
This story weaves grief, ecological destruction, technological collapse, and political resistance into a narrative that questions the systems sustaining both digital infrastructures and extractive economies. Blending fiction, political commentary, and artistic imagination, the piece follows two characters grappling with loss, misinformation, and the erasure of working-class lives that sustain the global tech economy through mining and resource extraction at the behest of resource greedy tech authoritarians.
- Imagining feminist technology through trajectories rooted in care and inclusive futures
This article explores “coding care” as a feminist approach to reimagining technology around relationships, justice, and ecological responsibility. Drawing on diverse experiences, it highlights four trajectories that collectively show how feminist technologists are challenging extractive and exclusionary systems by building alternative infrastructures, learning spaces, and governance models. The piece argues for technology grounded in collective safety, accessibility, sustainability, and community autonomy as the basis for more just digital futures.