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MLTalks: Building a toolbox for nonviolent resistance

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MIT Media Lab

by Tom Greene

Jan. 25, 2017

Series

MLTalks: Building a Toolbox for Nonviolent Resistance with Jamila Raqib
Host: Joi Ito

Jamila Raqib is Executive Director of the Albert Einstein Institution and a research affiliate at the Media Lab. In this MLTalk, she’ll start by speaking about building a toolbox for nonviolent resistance, and its potential both to fight oppressive systems and to preserve democratic rights and freedoms for all.

In the second part of Jamila’s talk, she and Media Lab Director Joi Ito will explore what the next phase of this work will require: the creation of an advanced and secure system to analyze and communicate techniques of resistance and defense to diverse groups of people. Among them: dissidents and activists, social and political movements, human rights defenders, and government bodies—anyone who wants to help drive social and political change.  

About Jamila Raqib

Jamila Raqib is the executive director of the Albert Einstein Institution, which promotes the study and strategic use of nonviolent action worldwide. Since 2002, she has worked closely with Dr. Gene Sharp, the world’s foremost scholar on strategic nonviolent action. Together, they developed a curriculum titled Self-Liberation: A Guide to Strategic Planning for Action to End a Dictatorship or Other Oppression. The publication is intended to provide in-depth guidance for planning a nonviolent struggle.

She represents the Institution at a number of domestic and international forums such as the Oslo Freedom Forum and the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations. Her work centers on presenting a pragmatic approach to nonviolent action to activists, human rights organizations, academics, and governments, and to individuals and groups seeking to achieve diverse goals such as opposing dictatorship, combatting corruption, attaining political rights, economic justice, environmental protection, and women’s empowerment.

She holds a BA in management from Simmons College in Boston, MA, and is a research affiliate at the MIT Media Lab , where she is exploring how innovations in technology and education, among other fields, can contribute to greater effectiveness in nonviolent struggle.

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