Building SMARTER Communities of Resistance and Solidarity

Main Article Content

Andre Oboler
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3569-6776
Karen Connelly

Abstract

The Cyber-Racism and Community Resilience (CRaCR) project included an examination into features of online communities of resistance and solidarity. This work formed a key part of the project’s focus on resilience and produced a deeper understanding of a range of types of actors working in this space and how they might individually contribute effectively to creating resilience. The need for new synergies between different types of stakeholders and approaches was highlighted as an area of future work. This paper explores a design for that future work that builds and supports online communities of resistance and solidarity by drawing on the lessons from the earlier research and extending them.

This new work both presents a model for cooperation and explains how different stakeholders can positively engage under the model in a smarter way. That is, through a system which facilitates Solidarity in Moving Against Racism Together while Enabling Resilience. This new approach draws on the strengths of individuals actors, but also seeks to turn points of weakness for one actor into opportunities for cooperation that strengthen the system as a whole.

Article Details

Section
Articles (refereed)
Author Biographies

Andre Oboler, La Trobe University

Dr Andre Oboler is a lecturer in the La Trobe University Law School and CEO of the Online Hate Prevention Institute, a civil society partner in the CRaCR project.

Karen Connelly, University of Technology Sydney

Karen Connelly is a PhD candidate at the University of Technology Sydney and Deakin University and a researcher on the CRaCR project.