The first part of this talk will focus on the concept of Data Colonialism, which explains the emergence of a new social order based not on the extraction of natural resources or labour, but on the appropriation of human life through data. This new type of colonialism is already resulting in a highly unequal social arrangement that is deeply incompatible with human freedom and autonomy, and resisting it will require strategies that decolonial thinking has foregrounded for centuries. The second part of the talk will examine the application of surveillance technologies along borders as instances of data colonialism, intended to control the movement of migrants and conduct a digital war against them.
Ulises Ali Mejías (ulises.mejias@oswego.edu; web: ulisesmejias.com) is Professor of Communication Studies and director of the Institute for Global Engagement at the State University of New York, Oswego. His work centers on critical internet studies, philosophy and sociology of technology, and political economy of digital media. He is the author of Off the Network: Disrupting the Digital World (University of Minnesota Press, 2013) and, with Nick Couldry, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is Colonizing Human Life and Appropriating It for Capitalism (Stanford University Press, 2019).