Technocolonialism : when technology for good is harmful / Mirca Madianou.
| Author/creator | Madianou, Mirca author. |
| Format | Electronic |
| Publication | Cambridge, UK ; Hoboken, NJ : Polity Press, 2025. |
| Copyright Date | ©2025 |
| Description | 1 online resource (vii, 248 pages) |
| Supplemental Content | Ebook Central |
| Subjects |
| Portion of title | When technology for good is harmful |
| Contents | Introduction -- The Logics of Digital Humanitarianism -- Biometric Infrastructures -- Extracting Data and the Illusion of Accountability -- Surreptitious Experimentation: Enchantment, Coloniality and Control -- The Humanitarian Machine: Automating Harm -- Mundane Resistance: Contesting Technocolonialism in Everyday Life -- Conclusion: Technocolonialism as Infrastructural Violence. |
| Abstract | With over 300 million people in need of humanitarian assistance, and with emergencies and climate disasters becoming more common, AI and big data are being championed as forces for good and as solutions to the complex challenges of the aid sector. This book argues, however, that digital innovation engenders new forms of violence and entrenches power asymmetries between the global South and North. Madianou develops a new concept, technocolonialism, to capture how the convergence of digital developments with humanitarian structures, state power and market forces reinvigorates and reshapes colonial legacies. The concept of technocolonialism shifts the attention to the constitutive role that digital infrastructures, data and AI play in accentuating inequities between aid providers and people in need. Drawing on ten years of research on the uses of digital technologies in humanitarian operations, the book examines a range of practices: from the normalization of biometric technologies and the datafication of humanitarian operations to experimentation in refugee camps, which are treated as laboratories for technological pilots. In so doing, the book opens new ground in the fields of humanitarianism and critical AI studies, and in the debates in postcolonial studies, by highlighting the fundamental role of digital technologies in reworking colonial genealogies.-- Provided by publisher. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| Biographical note | Mirca Madianou is Professor of Media, Communications and Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London. |
| Source of description | Print version record. |
| Issued in other form | Print version: Madianou, Mirca. Technocolonialism. Cambridge, UK ; Hoboken, NJ : Polity Press, 2025 9781509559022 |
| ISBN | 9781509565290 electronic book |
| ISBN | 1509565299 electronic book |
| ISBN | hardback |
| ISBN | paperback |
Availability
| Library | Location | Call Number | Status | Item Actions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Electronic Resources | Access Content Online | ✔ Available |