Instead of stretching bonds and building bridges, May saw us rethinking plans and finding ways to keep working together virtually; and with us, most of the Tech Justice community. We’ve been sitting with that reality lately. And with the questions it brings.
When one government pushes for the cancellation of a massive convening, other governments pay attention. What we’re witnessing isn’t a series of isolated incidents, but something that looks more like a blueprint being passed around: a demonstration that it’s possible to shut down international gatherings, to make connection harder, to send a message about who is and isn’t welcome to meet. The question isn’t only what we do when a specific event falls through. It’s what we do when the act of convening itself becomes contested.
We’ve spent quite a while going acknowledging the damages together with partners and thinking together of the best ways to move on. What is to be done with the work done in months of preparation as well as the financial and labor investment of people who were finally going to be in the same room.
There’s also an emotional dimension to this that we don’t always make room for. The people we’re trying to bring together are not just carrying their expertise. They’re carrying their fears, their hopes, their exhaustion. What would it look like to create spaces — even virtual ones — where that’s acknowledged? Where the question “how are you holding up?” is a real question, not a preamble to the agenda?
How do we stay connected when the systems try to prevent it?
One answer we keep coming back to is: think strategically, adapt to different sizes, strengthen the times before, after and in between. The connections that happen in “non official” moments need to be designed for, not left to chance. How do you build connections beyond the large convenings? And how do you build them with care at their core? It’s not easy, it asks more of us. And it runs directly into another question we can’t ignore: how do we stay connected while respecting the very real limits of connectivity that many in our communities face? “Let’s go online” is not an answer. It’s the beginning of a much more honest conversation about what actually works, for whom, and under what conditions.
Care can’t be shown, only felt
What would it look like to build care into the structure of how we work, not just the moments when things go wrong? To follow through not just until the event ends, but as people return to their contexts and their challenges? To start with questions rather than solutions — and mean it?
We don’t have a complete answer. We’re not sure anyone does. What we do believe is that these questions belong in the room with us, whoever we are and wherever we’re gathering. And that the act of asking them together — carefully, honestly, with the people most affected is itself a form of convening.
For us, these questions have a working answer. An answer that is partial, evolving, and grounded in our own team conversations and with partners. Convening with care means paying close attention to language, online and offline. It means anticipating accessibility needs (physical, cognitive, logistical, related to language) and building in support before anyone has to ask. It means planning with flexibility, staying agile in the schedule and the agenda when the room needs something different. It could also mean building in breaks and moments of genuine connection, not just moments of work. We’ve all had that conversation and that eureka moment that happened when the pressure of the formal conversation was not around anymore.
Caring also means being honest about what we can and can’t offer. Safety, accessibility and inclusion are the core of any convening. We strive to achieve them fully, knowing that the systems we operate within will always make that difficult and costly. That tension is not a reason to lower our bar: it is precisely why we hold it high.
Convening with care can also mean sharing information generously: logistics, background, reading material. It means being available to listen, not just to present. It means designing participatory, non-extractive exercises, and ensuring that the people who show up (often at real cost to themselves) are supported materially as much as possible,that they can have guidelines and people to connect them with others.
Convening is, above all, a journey, not a single event or group of events. It requires preparation, conversation, participants sharing experiences and ideas, organizers to have open ears and follow-up. It requires effort that is tailored to the people in the room. The goal is for people to feel genuinely welcome and included in the process, rather than resources to be extracted over the course of a few hours or days.