Tech Infrastructure Acknowledgement

As part of the tech justice work of the Union, some members have begun the practice of doing a tech infrastructure acknowledgement at the beginning of virtual events held on zoom or other big-tech platforms.  The idea is to acknowledge that we are aware of the harm of the technologies we are using and to create space to reckon with our systemic dependence on these platforms.  Below is sample text of a tech infrastructure acknowledgement that the Climate Justice Universities Union has used in our events.  Members are welcome to adopt this practice and use/adapt the text below.

“We acknowledge that some of us are living as settlers on ancestral Indigenous lands, continuing to benefit from past and ongoing colonial violence. At the same time, in our fossil-fuel driven and energy-intensive consumer economy, we are all participating in different kinds of invisible destruction, toxicity, and harm to frontline communities affected by the uneven effects of pollution, climate change, and resource extraction. Using technologies like Zoom is part of these invisible forms of "slow violence." The organizers of this virtual meeting decided that this conversation needed to take place and we needed to use existing infrastructure, but we acknowledge the harm and we are actively working to find alternative ways to connect that do not contribute to inequality or climate injustice.”