By Silvina González Soler
In a context marked by the rise of far-right movements, the concentration of technological power in the hands of a few companies, and a digital culture often characterized by surveillance, data extraction and the logic of constant performance, talking about digital resilience means asking ourselves a deeper question:
How do we want to move through increasingly hostile, violent and extractive digital spaces that are very much embedded in our lives, our movements and our communities?
A few months ago, at Women Deliver 2026, FRIDA facilitated a workshop on digital resilience and the construction of feminist digital territories alongside Jac sm Kee from Numun Fund. This workshop brought together people from different regions of the world, backgrounds and movements. From the outset, we didn’t want the session to be a ‘training’ based on technical ‘solutions’, but a participatory space where we could collectively reflect on what it means to resist, look after one another and develop strategies within a digital ecosystem that is often not designed for our practices.
We began with a simple yet complex question:
What does digital resilience mean to us?
The choice of this concept was not trivial. We know that the word ‘resilience’ can be problematic: it is often used within a framework of constant individual adaptation, continuous improvement and the ability to withstand any adversity. A framework closely linked to the idea that we must always be able to do more, achieve more and endure more. From our feminist practices, we know that this cannot be the only answer.
However, we also recognized that the notion of resilience could open up a shared conversation amongst people with very diverse experiences. It allowed us to ask ourselves collectively what we do when digital spaces become hostile, when our communities face attacks, when platforms do not support our forms of organization, and when sustaining our movements involves navigating multiple risks.
The responses were varied and, in many ways, contradictory.
For some people, digital resilience appears to be an unavoidable necessity: we have no choice but to learn to resist and adapt, because feminist and social justice movements need to continue to exist and build within these spaces.
But at the same time, another dimension emerged very strongly: resilience can also be exhausting. It can become a constant demand placed on those who sustain communities, lead organisations and face the daily consequences of inhabiting digital spaces marked by violence, precariousness and a lack of control over the tools we use.
Building on this tension, we worked in groups to unpack the values we associate with digital resilience and how those values can be translated into concrete practices. We explored which strategies already exist within our organizations, what challenges we continue to face, and what new forms of collective ownership we can imagine.
Perhaps one of the most important lessons from the workshop was to remember that digital resilience cannot be thought of solely in terms of improvement or the search for solutions. We also need to acknowledge the exhaustion, frustration and anger that so often accompany our digital experiences.
There is something deeply political in being able to say: this exhausts us, this hurts us, this enrages us.
From a feminist perspective, these feelings of unease are not individual failings that we need to correct. They are signs that can help us identify what we need to transform. Feminist anger, discomfort and weariness can also be creative drivers for imagining other forms of organization and other possible futures.
Because we are not navigating these digital spaces alone.
Thinking about digital resilience from a feminist perspective involves reclaiming the collective dimension of care, creation and defence. It involves remembering that technology is not neutral: today’s digital spaces were built according to specific priorities, often guided by commercial interests and business models that do not necessarily meet our needs.
But that is not the only possibility. From Ecofeminist perspectives, we understand that our bodies inhabit multiple territories that we need to care for and defend. The digital territory is also part of this fabric: it is a space where we build connections, share knowledge, organize resistance and create possible worlds.
Our digital body-territory deserves to be cared for with tenderness and respect. It deserves to be a space where we can reclaim agency and where we can imagine other ways of relating to technology.
Building feminist digital territories does not simply mean learning to protect ourselves from existing threats. It also means challenging the way we want to be present there. It means creating digital spaces where care, solidarity, accessibility and justice are central principles.
Digital resilience, then, does not have to be the ability to endure a system that constantly excludes us. It can become a collective practice to transform that system and build, together, digital territories where our communities can exist, create and thrive.
