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Paper short abstract

Drawing on practitioner experience at Change.org, this paper explores how grassroots women-led digital campaigns in the Global South negotiate digital rights, governance and feminist development futures through a bottom-up approach

Paper long abstract

Digital transformation is increasingly reshaping governance and development trajectories in the global south. While digital platforms offer quick access to opportunities promising new forms of inclusivity and equal participation, they also generate new forms of exclusion and discrimination especially for women and marginalised communities. This paper is drawn from the researcher's practitioner experience while working as a Campaign Strategist in Change.org India, supporting women-led digital campaigns across the country, to examine how digital rights are contested and negotiated through the medium of platform advocacy.

This paper explores how women use such digital platforms to fight for social issues translating their lived experiences - such as menstrual health, violence against women, gender-neutral washrooms etc, towards action-oriented policies/ collective political action.

By centring Global South feminist practice, the paper contributes to debates on digital rights, governance, and sustainable development by demonstrating how women-led digital campaigns function as bottom-up governance interventions. It argues that reimagining development futures requires moving beyond Eurocentric and technocratic models of digital transformation towards rights-based, gender-responsive digital governance frameworks. The paper concludes by reflecting on the implications for policy design, institutional reform, and the co-creation of more equitable and just digital futures grounded in grassroots agency.