The research project and its goals
Against this background, the project UPDATE proposes a grounded and nuanced research and transformation approach to explore how enhanced connectivity and technology could be reimagined in a feminist way.
The project will scrutinize two areas in which digitalization has been seen as holding major promise for sustainable development: a) safe and dignified employment and b) women’s mobilization and political participation.
The research focuses on three particular “use cases”:
- Use of digital technologies by formal and informal women workers to access employment and related opportunities (e.g., training);
- Use of digital spaces by formal and informal women workers and female activists to mobilize, organize, and network amongst themselves and with other movements;
- Use of digital spaces by formal and informal women workers to influence decision-making and development of policies and practices that affect them.
UPDATE aims at improving women’s digital resilience, and to empower digital workers to influence relevant structures and decision-making processes. In a transdisciplinary approach, the Kenyan-Swiss research team will identify challenges, highlight successful examples, and outline gaps. These steps will serve to improve the design of digital spaces, applications, tools and processes to better respond to gender-specific needs in digital employment.
Strengthening digital resilience, self-determination and rights
Generated through a transdisciplinary framework, this type of knowledge will help strengthen the digital resilience of communities and employees in Kenya, maximizing the potential to promote women’s empowerment, workers’ rights, social protection, and political engagement in the context of the gig economy.
The research also contributes to debates about gendered aspects of technology, and the way in which the digital revolution shapes working relations, thereby perpetuating or transforming norms of class and gender.
Research sites and partners
The primary research location is Kibera, an informal settlement in Nairobi. Kibera is home to an estimated 1.5 million people living in extreme poverty. Despite this, digitalization has flourished here, with large-scale mobile phone use and the prevalence of mobile money exchange. The project seeks to include other peri-urban and rural case studies in Kenya in areas of high digitalization.
UPDATE is rooted in collaboration between Swiss and Kenyan research institutions, and Kenyan feminist tech-activists.
