In Defense of Solidarity and Pleasure by Firuzeh Shokooh Valle critically examines how dominant development narratives portray women in the Global South as tech-savvy, entrepreneurial figures, while overlooking the structural barriers and potential violences inherent in digital technologies. Through ethnographic fieldwork in Costa Rica with the feminist cooperative Sulá Batsú and engagement with the transnational network APC Women's Rights Programme (WRP), the author illustrates how feminist activists are reclaiming digital tools not just for inclusion, but as means for building collective solidarities and erotic‑political pleasure. The book unfolds across four key moves: (1) deconstructing neoliberal technosolutionist imagery (the "Third World Technological Woman"), (2) mapping grounded solidarity practices, (3) theorizing pleasure as political, and (4) navigating uneasy alliances with funders, to ultimately propose a "feminist technological otherwise" that envisions digital futures anchored in collective well-being and transformative possibility.

Introduction: Feminist Technopolitics and Development

women in the Global South as "ideal technological subjects", hardworking, entrepreneurial, and naturally caring, expected to thrive in digital economies while systemic barriers remain unaddressed. Firuzeh Shokooh Valle shows how this image of the "Third World Technological Woman" continues older patterns of exploitation, now updated for the digital age, where women's labor, emotions, and data are treated as resources for economic growth.
Through ethnographic work with the Costa Rican cooperative Sulá Batsú and the global feminist network APC WRP, the book reveals alternative practices of technology grounded in solidarity, joy, and collective care. These organizations do not see technology simply as a tool for profit or efficiency, but as a medium for building community, resisting violence, and reimagining development. Their work highlights both the promises and the contradictions of feminist engagement with digital technologies, especially when navigating relationships with powerful funders and institutions.
At its core, the book develops a vision of feminist technopolitics of care, where solidarity and pleasure are not secondary to resistance but central to it. Care, joy, and collective well-being emerge as political forces that sustain movements, create new forms of connection, and resist the colonial, capitalist, and patriarchal logics embedded in digital systems. By centering these values, Shokooh Valle argues, feminist activists are forging technological futures rooted not in exploitation and control but in justice, dignity, and shared flourishing.

The Politics of Discourse

Global development institutions and corporations often frame digital technologies as tools of empowerment for women, especially in the Global South. Reports emphasize the potential of "digital inclusion" to close gaps in equality, but in practice, this inclusion often reproduces exploitation, surveillance, and precarity. This chapter shows how ideas of care, usually unpaid, undervalued labor performed by women, are transformed into measurable and monetizable resources in development agendas, especially during COVID-19. Women are imagined as the perfect digital subjects: hardworking, caring, and adaptable. Yet, this framing treats structural barriers as secondary, focusing instead on managing care through technologies that benefit markets more than women themselves.
Central to this discourse is the figure of the "Third World Technological Woman", a hybrid of entrepreneur and caregiver who embodies both efficiency and selflessness. She is presented as the hero of development, lifting families and communities through digital skills, entrepreneurship, and financial inclusion. But the author warns that this narrative hides deeper inequalities: it shifts responsibility onto women to fix systemic problems while leaving intact the neoliberal systems that cause them. Programs emphasize financial tools, digital banking, and entrepreneurial training, but they often deepen dependence on markets and expand surveillance. This is what scholars describe as "adverse incorporation" or "predatory inclusion," where marginalized groups are welcomed into digital systems but only on exploitative terms.
Latin American perspectives, particularly from ECLAC, present a more critical stance. They stress structural inequality, racism, and state responsibility, contrasting with the global push for market-driven "techno-fixes". While regional initiatives acknowledge care and call for justice, they too have increasingly aligned with corporate agendas after COVID-19, prioritizing rapid digital entrepreneurship and financial inclusion. The chapter concludes that while feminist struggles have made care and digital violence more visible, these gains are often absorbed into neoliberal frameworks. The challenge, then, is how to reclaim care, technology, and inclusion in ways that genuinely transform rather than reinforce existing inequalities.

Solidarity

Sulá Batsú is a Costa Rican cooperative founded in 2005 that combines technology with care, culture, and community. Instead of seeing technology only as a business tool, they focus on what one member called a "technology of feelings", built on respect, joy, and Indigenous knowledge. The group works collectively, sharing income and decisions, and runs workshops to help women and girls learn digital skills, online safety, and leadership. Their projects connect technology with art, education, and environmental care, always centering gender equality and community well-being.
Through initiatives like TIC-as, Sulá Batsú has trained thousands of rural girls and young women in Central America, encouraging them to break stereotypes and create their own tech solutions. They also organize feminist hackathons, where participants design apps and tools rooted in social and cultural needs, such as preserving Indigenous traditions or supporting young mothers. Over time, Sulá Batsú shifted away from simply preparing women to enter the corporate tech sector, which often exploits their skills, toward building grassroots, women-led collectives that keep knowledge and leadership in local communities.
At its core, Sulá Batsú sees technology as part of everyday relationships between people, communities, and the environment. They practice solidarity and care in their office culture, decision-making, and projects, even while facing financial struggles and internal conflicts. Their vision of entrepreneurship mixes cooperation, joy, and justice, resisting the competitive and profit-driven values of neoliberalism. For them, technology is not just about innovation but about defending life, human and more-than-human, through collective care, shared knowledge, and the creation of more just and connected worlds.

Pleasure

This chapter argues that care should also include pleasure, not just sacrifice or exhaustion. Joy, laughter, love, and good living are important for sustaining life and communities, yet these are often denied to marginalized groups, especially through laws, tech company policies, and surveillance systems. In the Global South, digital technologies are often promoted as tools of progress, but in reality are used for control, exploitation, and profit. This produces the image of the "Third World Technological Woman", a hardworking, caring, and entrepreneurial figure, who is expected to thrive in digital economies while deeper inequalities remain unchallenged.
Against this backdrop, the APC WRP has developed feminist approaches that connect technology with pleasure, care, and resistance. Through projects like the Feminist Principles of the Internet and EROTICS, they push for an internet that defends privacy, consent, and freedom of expression, while treating pleasure as a political right. Their activism reframes online spaces as embodied and emotional, not just technical, places where women and queer communities can experience joy, sexuality, and solidarity even in the face of violence. At the same time, they remain critical of how corporations and governments co-opt feminist language while leaving oppressive systems intact.
Finally, APC WRP links online gender-based violence (OGBV) to larger systems of patriarchy, racism, capitalism, and colonialism, rather than treating it as just individual harassment. They warn against relying only on criminalization, which can harm marginalized groups, and instead promote community-based responses, feminist digital safety practices, and infrastructures of care. By centering pleasure, embodiment, and collective justice, they work to reimagine the internet as a space of freedom, joy, and feminist transformation, where people are not only protected from harm but also able to live fully and creatively online.

Uneasy Alliances

This chapter looks at the challenges feminist groups face in getting money for their work. Since the 1980s, many grassroots movements have turned into NGOs, bringing both opportunities and problems. Critics warn that this "NGO-ization" can make activism less radical and more controlled by donors, especially corporations and governments. At the same time, feminist movements have never been fully separate from institutions, and some reforms, even when tied to funding, can still help bring change. The key issue is how groups deal with power, money, and politics while trying to stay true to their values.
Today, development funding has become more tied to corporations and private foundations, especially after the 2008 financial crisis. This means groups often have to accept money from companies or donors whose business models contribute to the very problems they are fighting, like exploitation or environmental harm. Less than 1% of this money goes directly to feminist and women's rights groups, especially those working with the most marginalized people. This forces activists into constant negotiations, balancing survival with their principles. Even big institutions like the UN now rely heavily on corporate-style funding, which risks shaping global priorities around the interests of powerful donors.
Groups like Sulá Batsú in Costa Rica and APC WRP show two different approaches. Sulá Batsú accepts money from companies like Google only if it comes without conditions and fits their mission, while rejecting others like Coca-Cola or local agribusinesses that clash with their values. APC WRP, on the other hand, avoids corporate tech funding altogether but still works in global spaces where tech companies are present, while also giving small grants to grassroots feminist groups. In the end, the reality is complex: activists must make tough choices, sometimes entering "uneasy alliances", but always trying to set boundaries and push back. The bigger concern is how private money shapes large institutions like the UN, which influence global policies and power relations on a massive scale.

Conclusion: A Feminist Technological Otherwise

In 2021, Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen confirmed what activists had long said: Facebook profits from harm, including hate, violence, and online abuse. This shows how capitalism, technology, and violence are deeply linked. Global development programs often reinforce these systems, especially in the Global South, by promoting "digital inclusion" while ignoring deeper injustices.
Two organizations, Sulá Batsú in Costa Rica and the APC WRP, challenge this by centering care, solidarity, and pleasure in their tech work with marginalized communities. They mix feminist principles with practical projects, while still having to navigate funding compromises and the pressures of corporate and state agendas. Both groups show that inclusion is complicated. Being included can bring benefits, but it can also mean exploitation, surveillance, and harm. The "Third World Technological Woman" is celebrated for her skills and care, yet often faces violence, poverty, and displacement—sometimes caused by the very institutions promoting her.
The author argues we must question the politics of inclusion, especially in unjust systems that "include" people while exploiting them. Digitalization depends on including bodies, data, and relationships into markets, but grassroots and feminist movements worldwide are building alternative visions, through community networks, cooperatives, justice-oriented tech, and mutual aid. These projects aren't perfect, but they offer hope, which, as Mariame Kaba says, is a discipline we must practice daily.