I have created this section called “Practices” to structure this web platform. However, as an intersectional feminist researcher and practitioner, I do try to avoid constructing binaries such as theory vs. practice, men vs. women, subject vs. object, etc. In fact, my practice does more than just feeding my research and vice-versa, they both exist because I embody, explore with and perform my research and my practices. Nonetheless, the questions and tensions remain: How does one position itself as a queer, feminist or a transfeminist in research, programming, engineering or any other fields? To be able to survive in all these fields you need to hack them. By finding hacking tactics that we can share with others it give us strength and courage to continue our work in what is often a very isolating experience.
The following projects highlight the ways in which I emboy theory and perform some of its tactics:
FemHack
As a feminist hacker, activist, artist and researcher, I co-founded FemHack a feminist (mobile) hackerspace in Montreal a few years ago. Our collective FemHack aims to create an empowering and inspiring environment for politicized feminist and queer hackers (as understood broadly). Triggered by Do-It-Together practices, learning by doing and curiosity about how things are made, believing in the freedom of technology, privacy, openness and sharing of common goods, we identify with the most avant-gardist elements of hacker ethics, which include caring for our community, our environment, our “politics” and about our code, among others. We believe there are different ways of representing realities through code, algorithms, programming, research, convergences, etc. Therefore, we take an intersectional feminist perspective to what we do and think, which means that we hack patriarchy, capitalism and other systems of oppression.
As FemHack we have been organising FemHackFest every 2nd year during Studio XX Htmlles Festival of Art and New Media. This way more people can learn and explore what hacking the body, art, space, hardward, design, sofware, academia, etc. means. Join us for the next FemHackFest in 2016.
TransHackFeminist Convergence
In August 2014, I co-organised the first TransHackFeminist convergence held in Calafou (Catalogna). If you are interested in reading more about the THF! and how we are conceptualising TransHackFeminism (as a verb, a prefix, a noun) do please check out this post. You can also visit the website that was created for the event at http://transhackfeminist.noblogs.org/. Also, I am helping to plan and organise the 2nd iteration of the THF! which will be held in Puebla (Mexico) in May 2015. If you want to know more don’t hesitate to contact me at: stoupin @ riseup.net