Konferenz: Who Owns Free Knowledge?

Artist and researcher meLê yamomo opens with a lecture-performance style conversation with Sri Margana, and Amabilita Sudarmanto, created with the artistic and production support of Jay Yamomo, Rafaga Svara, and Yiping Tian. Titled »Tumrap susilaning gěndhing winor laguning lělagon« the conversation asks if recorded voices, music, and sound cultures stored in museums and archives in Europe are just in exile, waiting for their return to their communities. This artistic opening leads right into the central questions of the conference. It touches on questions about the historical legacies of colonialist knowledge production, about the power asymmetries between different modes of knowledge and about the connection between knowledge and community.

This session critically examines the underlying power structures within the commons, free knowledge, and open-access movements. Despite claims of openness and inclusivity, hidden hierarchies related to geography, gender, and privilege continue to shape knowledge production, distribution, and accessibility. Experts from diverse fields—including commons research, open-source advocacy, feminist technoscience, and digital entrepreneurship—will discuss issues such as the Gender Data Gap, gatekeeping in open-access platforms, and developing new epistemologies and literacies to address these challenges. Together, they will explore strategies for democratizing knowledge and fostering more equitable participation in the digital commons.

Speakers: 

• Renata Avila (Open Knowledge Foundation)
• Gemma Copeland (Common Knowledge)
• Helen V. Pritchard (requested – University of Applied Science and Arts Northwestern Switzerland)

Session Organizers: 

• Bianca Herlo (University of Lucern)
• Andreas Unteidig (Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts)

This session critically examines the Enlightenment’s legacy in shaping contemporary knowledge systems. While celebrated for intellectual progress, its ideals also intersect with colonial and imperial ideologies. Through platforms like Wikipedia, we explore how the Enlightenment continues to influence knowledge production and power structures today.

Speakers: 

• Nikita Dhawan (TUD Dresden University of Technology)
• meLê yamomo (University of Amsterdam)
• Kelly Foster

Session Organizers: 

• Riham Abed-Ali (Wikimedia Deutschland)
• Alina Casanova (Wikimedia Deutschland)
• Jan-David Franke (Wikimedia Deutschland)
• Dominik Scholl (Wikimedia Deutschland)

The digital platform landscape has reshaped traditional knowledge systems, decentralizing the power to inform public discourse. Journalists are no longer sole gatekeepers; algorithms and platform policies now dictate information visibility. This session explores epistemic authority, its definition, key actors, and strategies in the digital age.

Speakers: 

• Anne Bartsch (Leipzig University)
• Franziska Martini (Institut für Demokratie und Zivilgesellschaft Jena)
• Anna-Theresa Mayer (Weizenbaum Institute)
• Florian Primig (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München)

Session Organizer: 

• Jakob Ohme (Weizenbaum Institute)

This session explores knowledge accessibility and digital power structures. AI, platform expansion, and data economies reshape knowledge, reinforcing corporate dominance. We examine how power shapes socio-digital environments, impacting who accesses, produces, and controls knowledge in an era of growing dependencies.

Speakers:

• Sana Ahmad (Helmut Schmidt University)
• Naomi Appelman (University of Amsterdam)
• Daniel Houben (Landshut University of Applied Sciences)

Session Organizers: 

• Clara Iglesias Keller
• Ann-Kathrin Koster
• Jana Pannier (Weizenbaum Institute/Berlin Social Science Center)

The barcamp is intended to open up a participatory space for sharing and learning. All attendees of the conference are encouraged to contribute ideas and questions, facilitate a session or share their experiences. The barcamp offers both sessions that have already been planned in advance, as well as space for your own contributions, to deepen or expand on conference topics. The session plan is scheduled collaboratively at the beginning of the barcamp, so please make sure you don’t miss the start. Participants can decide spontaneously which session they want to take part in. We have a background in organizing the annual Open Science Barcamp.

Barcamp Organizer:

• Lambert Heller (Head of the Open Science Lab at TIB and member of the Coordination Group of the Leibniz Strategy Forum “Open Science”)
• Dominik Scholl (Wikimedia Deutschland)