:GAIN

How do we imagine GenerativeAI Futures?

supported by IDRC, in collaboration with DAKILA – Philippine Collective for Modern Heroism and Active Vista Center 

The scalar rise of digital misinformation has been exacerbated by easy access to Generative AI applications. As more AI-generated information floods our digital and social media, conversations about provenance, authenticity, safety, representation, and weaponization of misinformation, particularly targeting vulnerable and underserved groups, have taken hold of our collective imagination of Generative AI futures.

About the project

:GAIN is a network of scholars, practitioners, change makers, developers, creators, and social actors working in the space of freedom of speech and expression, gender, sexuality, and climate justice narratives invested in understanding the future of Generative AI Facilitated Misinformation (GAIFM) and anticipating the challenges and opportunities through a South-South exchange.

The :GAIN community is building a South-South multivocal positionality to anticipate misinformation challenges

Learn more about the project at: https://regain.works/

Motivation

:GAIN engages in a critical field-building exercise to anticipate, address, and shape the futures of GAIFM, informed by 5 distinct motivations:

• We recognize the need to understand technologies as ‘in-the-making’, and thus develop a responsive strategy towards shaping responsible futures.
• We address the rise of generative AI as a disruption in existing discourse and practices of digital safety and security.

• We decenter the dominant discourse around generative AI futures from centers of privilege and instead develop a South-South positionality to build and challenge assumptions around GAIFM.
• We develop creative and speculative practices of research and intervention, anticipating undesirable futures, and building anticipatory skills to prevent them.
• We generate collaborative, intersectional knowledge frameworks that can be reparative tools for cross-regional and trans-local exchange of knowledge

Position

:GAIN positions itself on various edges in order to look at gender and sexual rights, freedom of speech and expression, and climate justice communities that are disproportionately impacted by GAIFM. These edges encompass:

• Marginalization: Identifying common and unique challenges that socially marginalized groups impacted by GAIFM are experiencing but have not received mainstream attention.
• Historicization: Looking at effective concepts, ideas, and approaches that have been successful in minimizing risks and harms of GAIFM and developing new ones needed to address the new challenges.

• Localization: While it is impossible to produce a comprehensive global south analysis, we will look at comparative and transferable case studies that represent symptomatic indicators of South-South exchange for reparative practices and field building.
• Methodological Innovation: Instead of literal data collection, we partner with networked groups and produce a collective, multivocal dialogue that goes beyond the local to do a South-South field-building to anticipate and address the challenges of GAIFM.
• Temporal Limits: We understand GAIFM as ‘in-the-making’ technologies, and thus look at ways of creating decolonial, speculative, and alternative forms of evidence building to diminish occurrences and impact of GAIFM.

Research Questions

:GAIN approaches its ambition of field building through an embodied and lived research practice of reparative knowledge production informed by 5 research questions:

• What does a South-South positionality on GAIFM look like? How do we hold space to mediate, exchange, and communicate a collective experience of GAIFM to recognize shared context and unique challenges?
• How do we articulate, document, and highlight best practices in Global South approaches to counter the impact of GAIFM on communities working on gender and sexual rights, freedom of speech and expression, and climate justice?

• How do we build a critical field to study emergent technologies through decolonial forms of knowledge making that can contribute directly to resource building for movements fighting GAIFM
• What are the new ‘cutting edge’ knowledge practices we will need to anticipate and address emerging ‘cutting edge’ technologies?
• What narrative change practices do we need to enable movement builders to position themselves as connected stakeholders shaping futures to minimize GAIFM impact?

Project Outputs

LEXICON: A Lexicon of updated terms, concepts, and frameworks to address and counter GAIFM, through a multi-vocal, South-South, comparative practice.

CASE STUDIES: A collection of case studies that indicate the common context and unique differences of working with GAIFM across three different intersectional themes: Gender and Sexual Rights, Freedom of Speech and Expression, and Climate Justice.

PAPERS: A multivocal position paper that produces anticipatory challenges of GAIFM through a South-South comparison, bringing forward a collective set of recommendations that center the experience, expertise, and embodied knowledge emerging from Majority World locations. 

Collaborators - Proponents

The Digital Narratives Studio (DNS) is a space for storytellers, researchers, and activists to explore how stories are shaped, shared, and weaponized in the digital age. Rooted in the ethos of hopeful collective action, the studio ventures into narrative change practices that examine, reframe, or challenge dominant narratives to open alternative imaginaries. DNS is housed at the School of Journalism and Communication, The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

DAKILA – Philippine Collective for Modern Heroism is an artist-activist group building a broad-based citizen movement for social transformation. Founded in 2005, it is at the forefront of the advocacy for human rights and democracy in the Philippines through its work in pioneering creative human rights campaigns, innovating movement-building strategies, and integrating narrative approaches to social change. 

Active Vista Center is an institution established by DAKILA to facilitate the social consciousness formation of citizens toward being active agents of change. Utilizing the arts, media, and popular culture in public advocacy and engagement, it runs programs on civic education, advocates’ development, creative labs, social impact film campaigns, and digital activism. It organizes the annual Active Vista Human Rights Festival in the Philippines.

Collaborators - Knowledge Architects

Knowledge Architects will represent various knowledge networks in intersectional areas such as gender and sexuality rights and freedom of speech, distributed across different parts of the Global South. They embody innovative and reparative scholarship and expertise, documenting, mapping, and contextualizing their knowledge about Generative AI Facilitated Information Weaponization (GAFIW) through collaborative dialogues, learning calls, exchanges, and writing.

Namita Aavriti’s (she/her) trajectory moves restlessly between law, media, art, and digital rights — but always with a political eye and a curatorial instinct. From organising one of South India’s most beloved queer film festivals to being part of coordinating large-scale feminist internet research projects across multiple countries, her work has consistently held space for dissent, pleasure, criticality and care. Whether producing a zine on the labour of queer film curation or designing an interactive video on censorship and sexuality in Asia, Namita’s practice reveals the often-overlooked textures of resistance — in archives, in code, and in affect.

Sam Chua (he/him) is a cultural entrepreneur, occasional consultant, and founding curator of Seapunk Studios (seapunk.asia), a research-and-imagination collective interested in fresh solarpunk-inspired futures for Southeast Asia (one of the ‘SEA’s in ‘seapunk’).

Sam’s practice explores the relationships between strategy, system, curiosity, care, spacemaking, self-cultivation, and civilizational change.

He has collaborated, worked, and facilitated with the likes of Digital Asia Hub, Metagov, Samsung, Chanel, Li & Fung, CMKL, and the Ethereum Foundation. Based in Asia, he currently lives in Kuala Lumpur.

Ms. Pyrou Chung (she/her) brings an environmental science background to gender justice work, collaborating with Asia Pacific NGOs and specializing in Indigenous women’s environmental defender networks and marginalized communities. She is a recognized expert in open knowledge systems and inclusive data governance, supporting Indigenous groups and women in managing environmental systems and cultural heritage with respect for data sovereignty. Her work bridges technology and social equity, focusing on digital transformation and the implications of Artificial Intelligence. Her research explores how AI in the climate change sector may affect Indigenous rights, ensuring ethical approaches that honor cultural and environmental integrity.

Isabel Crabtree-Condor is a mother, political economist, feminist, and climate justice strategist based in Amsterdam, with Peruvian British roots. She explores the connections between offline and digital movements, mobilisations and narratives claiming civic space. She weaves connections between people, cultures, bodies of knowledge and territories to create ideas that connect with many more people.

Isabel’s work focused on fostering creative collaborations that enhance knowledge and practices essential to civil society, activists, and movements. She is a Senior Influencing Advisor and Strategist within the Climate Justice team at Oxfam Novib. Currently, she is co-developing the Pause Fund (2025) with climate justice activists and knowledge partners Elemental and Digital Narratives Studio.

Kecheng Fang (he/him) is an Assistant Professor and Director of the M.A. in Journalism Program at the School of Journalism and Communication, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). His research interests include journalism, political communication, and digital media.

He received his Ph.D. degree from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. Before joining academia, he worked as a political journalist at the Chinese newspaper Southern Weekly. He received the Early Career Award from the Association for Chinese Communication Studies (ACCS) in 2024. He is also the founder of several public-facing projects, including Newslab, CNPolitics, and Beyond the Bubble Studio.

Maya Indira Ganesh (she/her) is Associate Director (Research Partnerships) and Assistant Research Professor at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence at the University of Cambridge, UK. She is a cultural theorist who studies the social and public adoption of AI across different contexts. From 2021-2024, Maya worked to co-develop and co-direct a master’s program in AI, Ethics & Society. Prior to academic work, Maya was a researcher working with civil society organisations in India, SE Asia, and Europe on gender justice, digital security, and freedom of speech and expression. Maya is also a freelance speaker, curatorial advisor, and essayist specialising in media arts, culture, and technology. Maya has a doctoral degree in Cultural Studies from Leuphana University, Lüneburg, Germany. ‘Auto-correct: The fantasies and failures of AI, ethics, and the driverless car’ is drawn from her doctoral thesis and was published in March 2025 by ArtEZ Press.

Artur C. Jaschke (PhD) (he/him) has obtained his Bachelor degree in Music (Contrabass and Drums) at Dartington College of Arts (United Kingdom) and the University of Otago (New Zealand). During this period he already developed a strong interest in music cognition and the neurology of music, which led him to complete his Master’s degree at the University of Amsterdam (The Netherlands), in Musicology and Music Cognition and his PhD at the VU University Amsterdam (The Netherlands) in clinical Neuropsychology with a specialisation in clinical Neuromusicology.

Currently, he is Reader Music-based Therapies and Interventions and in Ecologies of clinical Neuromusicology: creative AI, Music Sciences and Health Care Applications at the department of Music Therapy at ArtEZ University of the Arts in Enschede the Netherlands, specialising in the interrelation of music, technology and brain maturation in clinical and non clinical populations as well as clinical Research Fellow cognitive neuroscience of music at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at the University Medical Center Groningen and the Cambridge Institute for Music Therapy Research (UK). Additionally, he works as Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge (UK).

Prof Geci Karuri-Sebina (any pronouns) currently serves as an Associate Professor at the Wits School of Governance coordinating the Tayarisha Centre for Digital Governance and the Civic Tech Innovation Network. She is the ICESCO Chair on Innovation and Futures in Africa; Principal at the School of International Futures; and Adjunct Professor at UCT’s African Centre for Cities. She serves as Vice President of Africalics, a director of the Southern African Node of the Millennium Project and the Africa Innovation Summit, and is a Desmond Tutu African Leadership Fellow.

Geci holds Bachelors degrees in Computer Science and Sociology (Iowa); Masters degrees in Architecture and in Urban Planning (UCLA); and a PhD in planning and innovation studies (Wits University).

Adeline Kueh (she/her) is a visual artist who makes installations and socially-embodied works that reconsider the relationship we have with things and rituals around us. Using drawing as a conceptual tool, she looks to cartographies, craft and oral tradition to map out the historical trajectories across time and space through her use of found objects and new productions. As a co-founder of the Critical Craft Collective (Singapore) and the pan-Borneo/UK Serumpun Collective, the centrality of craft in contemporary practice as well as the politics of care are the core foci in her research practice. In light of the ecological turn, Adeline’s immediate concerns have shifted towards ideas around intimate labour, and the politics and poetics of care. Works made are seen as social objects inscribed with histories and narratives while simultaneously questioning the kinds of knowledge that are produced.

Presently a Senior Lecturer with the MA Fine Arts programme at LASALLE College of the Arts, Adeline has exhibited internationally. She was involved in the World Architecture Festival (2016-7), Hermes Singapore (2016), Venice Biennale (2019), and Singapore Tyler Print Institute’s Visiting Artists Programme (VAP) Residency (2021). In 2023, she was involved in NTU CCA IdeasFest 2023: Eat. Secure. Sustain, and Asia NOW Paris. In January 2024, Adeline was involved in The Fabulous Stories to Save the Green Planet, 2024 Cultural Olympics Exhibition Programme, Gangwon Cultural Heritage Exchange Exhibition, Gyeongpo Beach, South Korea. Adeline is a 2024-2026 Ewha Global Fellow with Ewha Womans University, South Korea

Dr. Sushant Kumar (he/him) is an Assistant Professor and Assistant Dean of Social Outreach at Jindal School of Government and Public Policy. He is a PhD in Public Policy from Northeastern University, Boston and has been a Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, Program in Science, Technology and Society. He works on science and technology policy issues, specifically focusing on the governance of Artificial Intelligence technologies currently. He uses a constructivist approach in his research to understand how ideas come to be, the role science and framing plays in legitimizing policy ideas, and how scientific evidence itself is socio-politically situated. He deploys interdisciplinary analytical frameworks from policy studies, STS and political communication.

His work has been published or forthcoming in leading journals including The Lancet, Journal of South Asian Studies, Behavioral Sciences, Economic and Political Weekly and in media platforms like The Wire and scroll.in. He has presented his work at leading international annual conferences of Society for Social Studies of Science, Association of South Asian Studies, Association of Asian Studies and Science and Democracy Network at Harvard. He has taught courses in Science, Technology and Public Policy, Techniques of Policy Analysis and Data Analysis using Python programming language.

Paula Miraglia (she/her) is the founder and CEO of Momentum – Journalism & Tech Task Force. She is also the co-founder and publisher of Gama Revista. She co-founded and directed Nexo Jornal for eight years.

Paula holds a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from the University of São Paulo (USP), where she also completed her master’s and undergraduate studies in Social Sciences. She is a Sulzberger Fellow at Columbia University.

Paula has held leadership roles in international organizations and served as a consultant for the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. She serves on the boards of the Center for News Technology and Innovation, the International Press Institute, Instituto de Referência Negra Peregum, and Brazilian Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (BPBES).

Micheline Rama (she/her) – a co-founder of DAKILA – is an artist, researcher, and international development professional with a multidisciplinary background in strategy, behavioral science, social change campaigning, advocacy communication, and human-centered design. She has leveraged this diverse skill set in developing and implementing social impact initiatives, training programs, academic courses and research projects. Her published works have been cited in the Routledge Handbook of Civil and Uncivil Society, served as bases for civil society program designs, and are included on academic resource hubs on disinformation and narrative studies.

Meanwhile, Micheline’s artistic practice has yielded textile artwork and multimedia pieces featured by cultural institutions such as the British Council, the Japan Foundation, Sheila C. Johnson Design Center – Parsons School of Design, Pineapple Labs. Alief Art House and Gravity Art Space.

Micheline graduated from the London School of Economics and Political Science – Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science with a Master of Science in Social and Public Communication after completing the programme on a Chevening Scholarship. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Visual Communication from the University of the Philippines, and completed residencies at the New York School of Visual Arts, and Johns Hopkins University.

Carin Rustema (she/her), with over 25 years of experience in the international higher education and the intersection between the public-private sector, held various international leadership roles, focussing on cross-sector and cross-border collaboration, setting up and leading international consortia in Europe, Asia and North America (mostly Canada).

Her work includes (new) educational and research program developments, social innovation and impacting. I work cross faculty with international teams on designing interdisciplinary, arts-based research and (short) educational programs around questions of social change, urban(in) justices, mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion and urban governance. In my current role at the Amsterdam University of Applied Science (AUAS – Centre of Expertise Just City) – she is involved in numerous advisory and research roles in the cultural and economic domain, working closely with the Municipality of Amsterdam (Community Wealth Building Economic Development and Urban Regeneration Nieuw West). Her research is mostly practice-oriented, action based, arts-based and highly collaborative and participatory. She currently work in 3 neighbourhoods in the city of Amsterdam where topics like sense-of-belonging, hospitality and collective memory building play an important role in building urban environments for new residents finding a place, a process called ‘home-ing’.

She holds an MBA in Social Venture Innovation (University of Groningen, Netherlands) and an MSc in Communication Science and Media from the University of Amsterdam (UvA, Netherlands). She is the Chair/Director of the (non-profit) initiative Stichting Doubleyoutee (2021) and Chair of the Board Stichting TILT Performance Art (2021), two innovative experimental platform for artistic research and the incubating of open educational programs.

Dr. Nishant Shah (he/him) is a feminist, humanist, technologist working in digital cultures. He wears many hats as an academic, researcher, educator and annotator, interested in translating research for public discourse and being informed by public discourse to orient his research.

He is a Professor of Global Media and Director of the Digital Narratives Studio at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, School of Communication and Journalism (Hong Kong). He was the founder of the Centre for Internet and Society, India, the Director of the Digital School at Leuhpana University, Germany, Vice-President of ArtEZ University of the Arts, The Netherlands, Faculty Associate at the Berkman-Klein Center for Internet and Society, Harvard University, USA. and a Knowledge Partner for the Dutch Human Rights Organisations Hivos and Oxfam.

Cristina Vélez (she/her) (b. Medellín, Colombia) is a digital social researcher and a Digital Civil Society Lab Fellow 2024-2025 at Stanford University. Her work lies at the intersection of platform research and social movements in Latin America, building the field through the design of tools and methodologies. She has co-founded and led pioneering initiatives in the region, such as Linterna Verde and the Lupas Project at somos-puentes.org which support civil society organizations and journalists with social listening tools, insights, and training. Cristina has 15 years of experience in the civic tech/transparency community, working at Transparency International (TI-S), The Engine Room, and La Silla Vacía. She is a political scientist with a Masters in Public Policy at the Hertie School of Governance as a Heinrich Böll Stiftung fellow. She serves on the board of the Karisma Foundation.

Kalindi Vora (she/her) is a Professor of American Studies, of Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies, and is an affiliate of the program in History of Science and Medicine at Yale University. She is currently a visiting Professor at the Center for Science and Thought at University of Bonn. Dr. Vora’s current research includes ongoing writing and publishing on artificial intelligence and automation through the lens of STS and critical race and gender theories. She is also beginning a book project, supported by a National Science Foundation Science and Technology Studies award (2022-2024) tentatively titled, Autoimmune: Chronic Conditions and Care in a Time of Uncertain Medicine. It places contemporary narratives of illness by patients facing racism and sexism in their daily lives within an analysis of the history of the concept of autoimmunity and contemporary practices of healthcare self-monitoring to understand the potential for patient-physician co-production of medical knowledge. She is author of Life Support: Biocapital and the New History of Outsourced Labor from the University of Minnesota Press (2015), of Reimagining Reproduction: Surrogacy, Labour and Technologies of Human Reproduction (2022) and co-author with Dr. Neda Atanasoski of Surrogate Humanity: Race, Robots, and the Politics of Technological Futures from Duke University Press (2018) and of Technoprecarious from MIT Press (2020) as a member of the Precarity Lab.

Saskia Witteborn (she/her) is a Professor at the School of Journalism and Communication at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). She specializes in critical technology studies. She earned her PhD from the University of Washington/USA and has held visiting appointments at the Free University of Berlin, the Berlin Institute for Migration and Integration Research/Humboldt University, Télécom Paris, and the London School of Economics and Political Science. Saskia Witteborn’s research explores how next-generation technologies shape human social interaction and mobilities. Her work spans Europe, North America, Asia, and digital environments, focusing on the geopolitics of identity, the datafication of migration, Web3, and AI in communication research. She has collaborated with various communities, theorizing the social implications of technologies and advocating for fieldwork-driven methodologies. Her scholarship is widely published in leading journals and edited volumes, including the Journal of Communication, New Media & Society, Cultural Studies, Telematics and Informatics, and the Journal of Refugee Studies. She is the author of Unruly Speech: Displacement and the Politics of Transgression (Stanford, 2023), co-editor of The SAGE Handbook of Media and Migration (SAGE, 2020), and co-author of Together: Communicating Interpersonally—a Social Construction Approach (Oxford, 2005).

Narrative Partners are experts in Narrative Change Practice who will advise, mentor, and facilitate the exchange and production of knowledge generated by the Knowledge Architects. They will provide feedback on case studies and assist in drafting the final position paper during an in-person writing sprint.

Graciela Selaimen (she/her) is a Brazilian journalist, writer, and social innovation strategist who bridges storytelling, technology, futures thinking and social change. As the founder and executive director of Instituto Toriba, she catalyzes collaborative imagination processes that bring together diverse actors to develop creative pathways for more sustainable, peaceful and prosperous futures. A proud mother of two amazing adults, Graciela has a profound faith in nature, and approaches her work and life with a deep sense of interconnectedness and hope.

Selaimen’s leadership extends to several prominent organizations, including board positions with More in Common, Oxfam Brazil, Manos Visibles, and the Brazilian Institute of Consumers’ Rights

Azza Nubi (she/her) is the Founder and Executive Director of LooM SWANA. She is a dedicated feminist, and LGBTIQ+ human rights advocate with extensive expertise in holistic security, digital rights, community building, and activism.

Azza has played a pivotal role in establishing and strengthening the queer movement, co-founding numerous organizations in Egypt, Sudan, North Africa, and beyond.

LooM SWANA is a regional LGBTIQ+ organization that aims to connect and intersect communities and human rights, internet freedom, digital rights, and holistic security themes to weave better futures for queer and trans people in South West Asia and North Africa “SWANA” region.

Simon Bayingana (he/him) has experience in community organizing, narratives coaching, movement building, civil resistance, and leadership mentorship. He has supported the development of meaningful research on narrative engagement across difference to build a relationships and coalitions among peace builders, dissidents, activists, and academics in the social justice movement. He is currently studying a masters in International Human Rights at the University of Denver in Colorado,USA.

Budhita Kismadi (she/her), as a facilitator, trainer, and systems coach, deeply committed to fostering collaboration and driving meaningful change in the international development and social impact sectors. She believes in the power of creativity—artistic expression, storytelling, and innovative thinking—to unlock potential and shape transformative solutions. She specializes in designing engaging learning experiences that inspire action and build consensus by integrating creative approaches. As a connector and communicator, she excels at creating inclusive spaces where diverse voices are valued, cultivating shared purpose and sparking collaboration.

Andrei Venal (he/him) is a communicator, artist, educator, and activist. He is the Strategy and Innovations Director of DAKILA, utilising his expertise in creative design and communications, organizational strategies, innovations in movement building, and cultural work focused on changing narratives and social behaviors. With his expertise in narrative change strategy, he leads learning sessions in networks such as Forum Asia and Mekong Cultural Hub toward narrative field building in the region. Andrei is a fellow of Salzburg Global Seminar.

Leni Velasco (she/her) is the Co-founder and Secretary-General of DAKILA, an artist-activist collective in the Philippines, and the Executive Director of its Active Vista Center. She represents East Asia in the Governance Circle of the global Innovation for Change network. She is actively involved in the intersection of art and activism as a member of the Global Impact Producers Alliance (GIPA), a trustee of the Albay Arts Foundation and the Women’s Day Off. She is currently a fellow of the Centre for Applied Human Rights at the University of York

Darlene Gan (she/her) is a human rights advocate and learning and communications specialist, working with young activists and social movement workers and collectives to reclaim and expand civic spaces and participate in social transformation.

She is the Education Director for artist-activist collective DAKILA, and concurrently leads the Learning & Development program of its Active Vista Center, facilitating the creation of knowledge products and implementation of capacity-building programs informed by narrative change and social behavior change approaches.

Marion Navarro (she/her) is a youth advocate working at the intersections of behavior change, mental health, sexual and reproductive rights, youth engagement, and community development. She serves as the Head of Partnerships and Co-Head for Health at Tara Kabataan, a youth organization based in Manila, and I organize with the Partido Manggagawa Kabataan Women’s Committee.

She is also a young academic, currently teaching at the Department of Behavioral Sciences, University of the Philippines Manila. Her research focuses on issues of health, women, and youth.

Learn more about the collaborators here: https://regain.works/collaborators/