Colonialism, Post, and Anti in the Digital Age

In the “digital age” broadly conceived, how do we continue to understand and resist colonialism? What are the existential risks of our present moment and in what ways can we appropriate these formidable apparatuses and digital methods for anti-/postcolonial ends?

Colonialism denies its allocation to the past. It persists, sometimes in very real modes of governance, and is resisted—whether through anti-colonial movements or by epistemological frameworks developed in the field of postcolonial studies. Its persistence demands that we ask how it has changed alongside exponential data accumulation, fast evolving mediums, accelerating advancements in artificial intelligence and machine learning, and the vast reaches of human networks.

This Colloquy brings together scholars who use computational methodologies and digital humanities frameworks to position the digital as material and thereby challenge the replication of inequalities in the digital space. These thinkers trace continuities across mediums, observe human-AI relations, and question the digital infrastructures of scholarship. This Colloquy aims to unite these scholars, their tools and disciplines into a cross-disciplinary discussion of colonialism even as it dissipates into the cloud.

Roopika Risam’s book chapter, “The Stakes of Postcolonial Digital Humanities” from her New Digital Worlds: Postcolonial Digital Humanities in Theory, Praxis, and Pedagogy lays the foundation for this Colloquy’s focus on the intersection between colonialism and digital worlds. Risam emphasizes the need for marginalized voices to be involved in the creation of new digital worlds because it is not about hope but about cultural survival. The chapter asks, “Will these be the worlds that reaffirm the dominant cultural values and knowledge hierarchies or will they be the ones that we use to imagine new forms of resistance through digital knowledge production?”

Extracts from Neema Githere’s Substack letter, which alternates between verse and what Githere calls “guerrilla theory,” illustrate how theory and praxis can come together to create new digital worlds that resist traditional hierarchies inherited through colonialism. Githere enters spaces of conversation where the stakes are often about cultural survival, but consistently points towards hope through concepts like data healing and love as social activism and civil disobedience.

The other initial contributions here evince the central concerns of this Colloquy. On the topic of AI, we include Dr. Hēmi Whaanga’s (Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Mamoe, Waitaha) essay from the Indigenous Protocol and Artificial Intelligence Working Group on the extractive potential of AI systems. To encourage us to think about resistive digital practices, the introductory chapter from André Brock Jr.’s Distributed Blackness (2020) explores cyberspace as a new avenue for Black refusal of white hegemony and Black identity formation.

We know conversations and findings about colonialism and the digital age will only proliferate. To this end, we welcome contributions of essays, journal articles, and book chapters from thinkers preoccupied with the specific threats and potential affordances of our digital moment.

Learn more about the Colonialism, Post, and Anti in the Digital Age Workshop.

Curators

Carmen Thong

Kay Barrett

Another (Digital) World is Possible: The Stakes of Postcolonial Digital Humanities

Lecture

In her lecture, "Another (Digital) World is Possible: The Stakes of Postcolonial Digital Humanities," Roopika Risam discusses connections between the physical and epistemic violence of colonialism to demonstrate the stakes of knowledge production in digital landscapes. Calling on digital humanities scholars to make visible the epistemic violence that shapes knowledge production, Risam explores what a post-colonial digital humanities might look like.

Distributed Blackness: Introduction

Book Chapter

Brock devises critical technocultural discourse analysis to explore Black digital identity, Black digital practices, and Black digital artifacts, demonstrating how Black folk have made the internet a “Black space," the contours of which have become visible through sociality and distributed digital practice while also decentering whiteness as the default internet identity.

The Internet Determines What Is Remembered and Who Is Forgotten

Essay

In Sudan, the internet access was cut off. In Tigray, the internet access was cut off. In Gaza, the internet access is being cut off. Have you noticed the stories dwindle?

AI: A New (R)Evolution or the New Colonizer for Indigenous Peoples?

Essay

The rapid progress of technology and innovation, in terms of its volume, complexity, and exponential growth in computing power, have drastically changed how we socialize, communicate, access, share, distribute and view knowledge and information. Is AI inevitable, inescapable, a fait accompli for Indigenous peoples?