Data grab: The new colonialism of big tech and how to resist it

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This talk will introduce the speakers’ new book, Data Grab: The New Colonialism of Big Tech and How to Resist It.

Ulises and Nick argue that today’s transformations of social life through data must be grasped within the long historical arc of dispossession, as both a new form of colonialism and an extension of capitalism. This emergent ‘data colonialism’ gives shape to a social order based not on the extraction of natural resources or labor, but on the appropriation of human life through data.

Data colonialism is already resulting in a highly unequal social arrangement whose negative impacts are more acutely felt by the traditional victims of colonialism, whether we define them in terms of race, class or gender; resisting it will require strategies that decolonial thinking has foregrounded for decades.

This event will be particularly useful for researchers and policymakers interested in data science, sociology, and decolonial and media studies.

Please note this is a hybrid event and can be joined either in-person or online.

Related links

• UCL Knowledge Lab
• Culture, Communication and Media