A reading group for hopeful technologists #2: - Imagination: A Manifesto
This event worked so well the first time, we're doing it again!
It also coincides with the paperback publication of Ruha Benjamin's Imagination: A Manifesto (available from Bookshop.org.uk, Afrori Books, and your local independent bookseller).
A gentle, shared space to come together as an act of hopeful resistance and solidarity building.
Who's it for?
People who work in, make, study or just spend too much time thinking about technology, who want to build and shape equitable alternatives to the techno-optimistic AI brotopia.
What will we do?
Come along having read Ruha Benjamin's Imagination: A Manifesto https://www.ruhabenjamin.com/imagination-a-manifesto and we'll spend an hour talking about the book and related topics.
Gently Self-Organised
If more than 12 people come along, we'll split into small groups to discuss the book.
If you're the sort of person who likes to be prepared, there's a comprehensive discussion guide here and also inspiration for play and discovery in the Imagination Playbook by Dr Ariana Brazer https://www.imaginationplaybook.com/ - taking inspiration from that, here are a few prompts that might guide your conversation on the day, but each group discussion will inevitably head in a different direction. Based on that, some possible discussion topics include:
1. What is your response to the book? How did reading it make you feel?
2. Are there any passages of the book that resonated with you? Feel free to read out a short extract and reflect on it together.
3. What comes to mind when you think of the word “innovation”? How does it relate to your own individual and your community’s collective imaginations? How should we judge “innovation”—as products, services, movements, institutions, or something else entirely? (Question 10)
4. Some well-known technology figures in the field of technology are aligned with what Benjamin terms the "eugenics imagination" (Ch 3); the consequences of that are playing out now in the US government. What can we do collectively to move beyond that, and make other imaginations central to the development of technologies?
5. What does "emancipatory social change" look like in the field of technology? (based on Q8)
6. What drives liberatory transformation? What impedes it? Share different scenarios that build toward a truly emancipatory future. Don’t hold back on your array—share both your most optimistic/aspirational and pessimistic/pragmatic predictions. (Based on Project Prompt 8)
Code of Conduct.
In attending this online reading group, you agree to:
- Act respectfully and inclusively towards others
- Share knowledge
- Respect one another's privacy
- Show self-awareness and make space for others