Main activities [script]

Moments to group all the participants with discussions on central and important contents for the journey of the Gincana. Can be synchronous or asynchronous.

Introduction to the infrastructure of affection

The activity below was done online, during the Monster Gincana.

Objective

Introduce the concept of infrastructures of Affection.

Duration

1h30

Arriving [5 minutes]

We waited for everyone to arrive for a few minutes, with some good music playing. We leave a song and a notice in the chat that we will start in a few minutes. Let the music goes until everyone arrives!

Welcome + stretching + breathing + water [10 minutes]

"Did you all stretch today? That good stretch, though!"

"Did you notice how much our bodies stretch? Have you breathed in? Have you taken that deep breath? have you filled your lungs with air? have you noticed how our lungs expand? No? Then let's do it together?"

Stand up and stretch with the cameras open - for those who want to!

Stretch for 20 seconds + 3 very deep breaths, all together!

Remind them to get water, and give them 2min to fetch it.
That's it! Now we are all here, realizing a little more about our bodies and hydrating ourselves, simple things but that we can always remind each other, basic things to take care of in our daily routine.

What is safety [20 minutes]

What is safety for you? Without thinking too much, what comes to mind, in a word or a phrase.
The facilitators record everything that is said on a board that is shared with everyone.
As soon as we run out, we move on to a presentation of the theme.
Then we talk about the presentation and introduction of the theme We link it to the idea of care routines, and the role of women and people without a defined gender in technology. What do these have in common?
How do we construct our infrastructure of affections in life? How is all of this related to the idea of safety?

Care routine description activity [15 minutes]

Ask them to make a description of their caregiving routines and the infrastructures they use for those routines - as detailed as they can, in 15 minutes.

We open it up for anyone who wants to (3 or 4 people) to share their care routines.
As they talk about their care routines, their tools of the trade, whoever has children or takes care of others, we are going to highlight how these daily care routines are a programmatic practice.
From this, we will realize how women are protagonists of routines and creation of models within their communities, homes, and activism. Historically, women have always been responsible for the optimization of tasks, for the elaboration of tasks, even with the separation of work by gender. Women systematized and men went to war, even present in the history of computing. So we notice that, whether in computing or in ancestry, this place belongs to women, and that we elaborate strategies daily and that we have been strategists since we were born.

Discussion [20 minutes]

Trans and cis women of different ethnicities and sexual orientations, as well as diverse LGBTQIA+ people, have always been behind the networks of affection, until at what point technology shifted space and becomes recognized as something hegemonically male and white, what has changed since then?!

We come back to affection.

As much as technology was created with a perspective of war, before this change it still had an affective, routine character. We tell the story of Grace Hopper.
Even after the post-war period, women's relationship with machines was still one of creation rather than subservience as it becomes after men take over. What they call archaic, we call ancestral!

Language compared to what it expresses: understanding these differences to be able to build a digital care that makes sense within our narrative, our subjectivity... How to translate to these places their experiences and language, with the life experiences they bring with them.

Closing [5 minutes]

How am I leaving? Saying goodbye... "We have talked so much about technology today... We invite each of you to quickly bring a phrase or word that communicates how you are leaving today's activity..."