RESEARCH & LABORATORIES
Computer Garden (2022)
Computer Garden is a digital guide that connects knowledge about medicinal plants with resources to address digital violence. The project stems from the idea that prevention and care in the technological sphere can be inspired by ancestral and vernacular practices of gardening and folk medicine. In this way, it offers an alternative perspective to conventional digital security guides, emphasizing not only technical protection but also the symbolic and cultural dimensions of care.The guide combines botanical knowledge with technopolitical knowledge, drawing parallels between the properties of certain plants (soothing, protective, regenerative) and strategies for confronting online harassment and violence. Presented as an open and constantly evolving tool, Computer Garden has a pedagogical and community-oriented purpose: to help understand digital violence not only as a technical issue but also as a social and cultural one, and to propose creative and accessible ways to build collective resilience.
Doctoral Thesis – The Experience as a Document: Designing for the Future of Collaborative Remembering in Digital Archives (University of Hull, 2020)
The thesis was developed between 2015 and 2020 within the Media & Memory Research Initiative at the University of Hull, and proposes an original framework for rethinking collaborative digital memory from feminist and technopolitical perspectives. It connects the fields of memory studies, media studies, and critical design, building bridges between the notion of “experience” in feminist theory and “user experience (UX)” in digital design. Using concepts such as “conversational remembering,” the research shows how digital spaces are essential for the collective construction of identity, especially for women, LGBTQ+ people, and other marginalized communities.
Judith Butler’s work on hate speech, Paul B. Preciado’s concept of the body as an archive, and the tradition of geek feminism are central references in a framework that understands memory as a somatopolitical practice.
Empirically, the study combines digital ethnography and prototype development. Highlights include the creation of an application to detect bias on Wikipedia, enabling users to express responses to discriminatory content, and the Body Archive project, which investigated how bodies become repositories of experience in collective digital memory. I also proposed the Ana Mendieta Protocols, a set of guidelines for applying design justice theories and methodologies in digital environments. Overall, the thesis contributes to formulating a model of feminist safe/brave spaces online, fostering knowledge production and shared memory without the risk of harassment and violence that often inhibit participation in mainstream digital networks.
Open Data and Gender Inequality Report – Government of Catalonia (2019)
This project, commissioned by the Department of Transparency and Open Government, aimed to explore how open data could help measure and make visible gender inequalities in Catalonia. The research involved prioritizing and reviewing public datasets to determine which were most relevant for analyzing gaps in areas such as the labor market, health, education, and political participation.
The report emphasized the need to address gender not as an add-on but as a structural criterion in deciding what is published and how it is published in open data portals. It identified shortcomings in existing datasets and the need to generate more precise indicators, as well as to collect intersectional information considering variables such as origin, class, or age. It also underlined the importance of involving both institutions and social groups in designing these data policies, to ensure that the real needs of citizens were reflected. The report was pioneering in placing a feminist perspective at the core of open data policies in Catalonia, opening paths for future collaborations between administrations and critical data research labs.
Decidim from a Feminist Perspective (LAB Metadecidim, 2019)
As part of LAB Metadecidim, a session was organized to analyze the Decidim digital participation platform through a feminist lens. The activity began with presentations by experts in feminism, technology, and political philosophy, who shared reflections on how technology can either reproduce inequalities or help transform them.
In the second part, working groups were formed to examine three key layers of the platform: the technological (code and architecture), the technopolitical (language and participation mechanics), and the political (design of democratic processes). The results were a set of challenges and proposals to improve Decidim, with the goal of steering it towards a more inclusive, equitable tool sensitive to diverse voices.
Science Biennial – Citizen Science Hackathon: Public Policies + Design Justice (2019)
This hackathon, held as part of the Barcelona Science Biennial, was designed as a co-creation exercise bringing together researchers, activists, and institutions. The goal was to experiment with participatory formats that connected public policy design with the framework of design justice (a movement and methodology that asserts that design—of objects, technologies, spaces, or processes—is never neutral, but always reflects and reproduces power relations).
Over the course of a marathon day, collectives working in social and digital research joined public administration representatives and social movements to develop proposals that pushed beyond conventional models of institutional participation.
The project culminated in a set of prototypes and ideas that incorporated feminist methodologies and open data approaches into the field of public policy. Beyond concrete results, the hackathon served to highlight the limits and possibilities of citizen science when applied to policymaking, opening pathways for future collaborations between universities, citizen labs, and local governments.
Philosophy Biennial – Open City Wiki-Data-Thon: Co-Creation and Collective Memory (2018)
The project began with the question “What does an open city mean?” and with the idea of rethinking Barcelona’s toponymy and urban memory. The event brought together groups specialized in mapping, data visualization, and historical memory, with the aim of building new narratives about public space collectively.
Working with Wikidata and other open tools, participants created datasets to reflect the diversity of groups and individuals erased from the city’s official history. The day became a collective exercise in memory and political imagination: if women, migrants, and marginalized groups had been recognized, how would Barcelona’s streets be named today? From this question, participants generated maps and visualizations that revealed gaps in the official narrative while offering new ways to understand the city as a shared and plural space.
Participation and Gender Report – Barcelona City Council (2017)
This report analyzed the state of institutional and social participation in Barcelona between 2016 and 2017. The research combined quantitative data with qualitative work, drawing on theoretical frameworks inspired by Harding, Butler, and Spivak to think about a politics of presence from the perspective of subaltern users.
The study looked at both institutional spaces—neighborhood councils, consultative and governance bodies—and non-institutional forms of social participation, with the aim of understanding the micro-processes that shape women’s voice and influence.
The findings showed a complex picture: while gender parity was formally maintained at City Council level, there were still bodies with more than 60% men, reflecting male-dominated spaces; in the social sphere, however, women participated more actively than men. The report also stressed the need for intersectional diagnostics considering origin and moving beyond binary gender as the sole variable of analysis. It introduced the concept of the “feminization of participation,” understood as the incorporation of care, cooperation, and diversity as central elements in designing more emancipatory public policies, less tied to patriarchal foundations.