AbstractIn this session, we would like to bring into conversation researchers, activists, and practitioners who engage with (digital) technologies through the lens of community and diverse economies.Technological innovation has become a central issue of our times. Across diverse contexts, services and access to them are increasingly being platformised. In parallel, communities are taking technology as a tool for social action and empowerment. Since the rise of the so-called “sharing economy” in the early 2010s, critical scholarship has highlighted the extractive and exploitative dynamics underpinning many emergent technologies.Fifteen years on, we believe it is urgent to explore and imagine alternative ways of innovating and engaging with digital technologies and to explore how these technologies are shaping alternative and radical approaches to organizing in communities. This includes, for example, the emergence of platform cooperativism in various parts of the world, or community technology practices developed in the United Kingdom that challenge dominant techno-capitalist and techno-solutionist narratives.With this session, we would like to open a space for conversation, where participants can share experiences, insights, and questions around diverse ways of using and imagining digital technologies that move beyond extractive models and toward more just, community-driven futures. We would be happy to hear a 5-10 minute presentation by the participants, to exchange thoughts about the different experiences we have encountered over time.
