The decolonial turn in data and technology research: what is at stake and where is it heading?

Abstract

This article traces the emergence of a 'decolonial turn' in critical technology and data studies that analyzes the transformation of society through data extraction for profit. First, we offer a genealogy of concepts over the last decade from different fields related to this decolonial turn, including work that explores the connection between racism and data. Second, we discuss the commonalities and differences between these approaches and our own proposal, the data colonialism thesis (Couldry & Mejias, 2018 to clarify how, together, they provide a distinctive take on data and technology. Third, we summarize the most important advantages of the decolonial turn as a transhistorical tool to understand the continuities between colonialism and capitalism. Finally, some wider implications of a decolonial approach to data are explored, and broad theoretical and practical opportunities for resistance are identified.

Critical geographies of smart development

“…Scholars have noted the limits of theories of smartness that stem predominantly from the Global North (Carvalho, 2015; Kitchin, 2015; Luque‐Ayala & Marvin, 2015), and called for ‘contextually informed definitions’ of smartness from the Global South (Prasad & Alizadeh, 2020). Growing interdisciplinary scholarship centres the continuities between contemporary data extraction and ongoing coloniality (Couldry & Mejias, 2021). Using the language of data colonialism (Thatcher et al, 2016), digital colonialism (Kwet, 2019) or computing in/from the South (Amrute & Murillo, 2020), this work positions new systems of digital connection within older geographies of global inequality.…”

“…Critical scholars have firmly established that technology is no panacea for the long, contested history of underdevelopment and global inequality. Digital geographies are shaped by variegated landscapes (Ash et al, 2018; Leszczynski, 2020; Thatcher et al, 2018) and intersecting relations of power and exploitation (Couldry & Mejias, 2021; Datta, 2015; Elwood & Leszczynski, 2018). Recognising that material conditions and relations of inequality matter to how smart systems evolve, we position the development of smart infrastructures as a political act that intersects, in powerful ways, with ongoing decolonial struggles in the uneven landscapes of the postcolonial world.…”

Rethinking technologies of remembering for a postcolonial world

“…While media infrastructures research which draws down heavily on colonial and postcolonial historical perspectives, one of the limitations of what Couldry and Mejias (2021) have called the 'decolonial turn' in digital media and communications studies more generally, has been a tendency to adopt and apply the term 'colonialism' to contemporary data networks in rather loose and metaphorical ways. As Casilli notes, 'using notions such as colonialism, imperialism, and slavery by drawing broad parallels between present and past times risks trivializing and dehistoricizing the experience of colonization, neglecting the specificities of colonial past and geographies ' (2017, 3946).…”

Power to the People? Opportunities and Challenges for Participatory AI

“…The Māori case study is an illuminating example that brings together participatory mechanisms as means for methodological innovation while offering reciprocity to the relevant stakeholders. It is a process that prioritizes the net benefit of participants, especially those disproportionately impacted by oppressive social structures, who often carry the burdens of negative impacts of technology [12,22,62,65] and reflecting a fair or proportionate return for the value of the participatory engagement. This is of particularly importance when seeking to utilize participatory mechanisms to achieve methodological innovation, or where the process yields unique insights that can inform new or innovative technological artefacts (as opposed to a means to achieve a particular pre-determined technical objective).…”