Reclaim Open Keynote: Dr Bonnie Stewart
We are VERY excited to announce Dr Bonnie Stewart as the opening keynote speaker for Reclaim Open 2025! Check out the full schedule for Reclaim Open, learn more about our keynote speakers, presenters and bloggers.
Keynote: Rewilding voice in a time of enclosure
In a world of feeds full of algorithmic reels and AI slop, what does it mean to write for ourselves? In a post-RSS, post-social media era, how do we navigate the enclosure and weaponization of the platforms that once networked the voices of the open web? And if we *do* push through the journey of crafting our own voices, our own narratives…does the breakdown of networks and fracturing of the open web mean our voices will echo, unheard?
This keynote is aimed at tracing the sociomaterial shifts in what writing online has meant over the last 15-20 years, and convening a social, back-and-forth discussion via Mentimenter. It will explore and poll participants’ experiences and feelings about the various questions posed, and what answers and suggestions we can muster, as a collective. It will explore what’s been lost, but also what possibilities remain when the web is viewed as what Ursula Franklin called a ‘holistic technology’…as opposed to the prescriptive technologies that enclosure and automation offer us.
The keynote will focus on ‘re-wilding’ ideas of voice and a commons even within our polluted information ecosystem, and on building capacity to connect with each other and to value each other’s voices.
Dr Bonnie Stewart is Associate Professor, Online Pedagogy and Workplace Learning, Faculty of Education, University of Windsor.
Register now to join us, November 4-6, as we come together on the open web, via federated social networks, on the radio and on a blog near you. With three days of inspiring sessions, a blog-a-thon and plenty of practical know-how to take away, this is one event you don’t want to miss.
