Difference between revisions of "Safe Space Offline"

Latest revision as of 11:57, 27 May 2015

How can we create a safe space offline ? What are the different types and formats a physical safe space can take?

How can I set up a safe space offline?

The difficulties in defining what a "safe space" should look like are inherent in the fact that you are bringing a diversity of people together, who might be considered to be part of the same community but all have different histories, contexts and needs. What one person might find politically, socially or personally threatening, might mean very little to another. And everyone will of course also come with different experiences and levels of knowledge and skills in technology.

We need to remind ourselves then that whenever we create a space, even a safe space, it will never be experienced in the same way by the people involved. It is important to be aware that, in struggling to perfect a feminist safe space, one always runs the risk of creating, instead, yet another form of social control and pressure to conform to a particular image of what a woman, queer or trans* identified person is.

So, overall, the most important thing to remember is that everyone is different, with their own set of experiences, history, context and needs. There is always risk and vulnerability in opening yourself to new experiences. The more diverse the environment, the more emotional risk we open ourselves to as ideas and ways of being may be fundamentally challenged. So we are not aiming for the avoidance of any kind of conflict or emotional risk but, instead, to provide buffers, understanding, reciprocation, support, love, and care for each other and for our shared endeavour. We must take every possible step to ensure that practical needs are met (protecting anonymity, respecting diversity, dealing with harassment, providing appropriate living space, etc.), and focus on collaboration, facilitation and mediation.

Case Study

Methodology

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-How can we create a safe space offline ? What are the different types and formats of physical safe space we can create? Who will be able to be active in the space?
+How can we create a safe space offline ? What are the different types and formats a physical safe space can take?
-Ideas have arisen in women and trans* tech conferences and skills workshops as how best to build safe spaces. Groups such as Flossie.org, Fossbox, Autonomous Tech Fetish (ATF), and Eclectic Tech Carnival (ETC) have each used a different set of principles to build safe spaces and are thus good examples to explore to highlight some of the differences, how to facilitate discussion about them, and how to arrive at a shared idea of an appropriate space for women and trans* persons to engage with tech.
+== How can I set up a safe space offline?==
-Every group has to work out their own idea of an appropriate space for their participants. Once you have arrived at a shared ideal, it's time to look at the practicalities of implementing these ideas in material, offline, spaces. This will include thinking about how much formality you want, what kind of formalities, how you will accommodate diversity, how you will facilitate participation for all the participants both in terms of your practical arrangements and in the way you formalise the social space.
+The difficulties in defining what a "safe space" should look like are inherent in the fact that you are bringing a diversity of people together, who might be considered to be part of the same community but all have different histories, contexts and needs. What one person might find politically, socially or personally threatening, might mean very little to another. And everyone will of course also come with different experiences and levels of knowledge and skills in technology.
+We need to remind ourselves then that whenever we create a space, even a safe space, it will never be experienced in the same way by the people involved. It is important to be aware that, in struggling to perfect a feminist safe space, one always runs the risk of creating, instead, yet another form of social control and pressure to conform to a particular image of what a woman, queer or trans* identified person is.
+So, overall, the most important thing to remember is that everyone is different, with their own set of experiences, history, context and needs. There is always risk and vulnerability in opening yourself to new experiences. The more diverse the environment, the more emotional risk we open ourselves to as ideas and ways of being may be fundamentally challenged. So we are not aiming for the avoidance of any kind of conflict or emotional risk but, instead, to provide buffers, understanding, reciprocation, support, love, and care for each other and for our shared endeavour. We must take every possible step to ensure that practical needs are met (protecting anonymity, respecting diversity, dealing with harassment, providing appropriate living space, etc.), and focus on collaboration, facilitation and mediation.
+== Case Study ==
+== Methodology ==
 [[Category:Resources]]