Toward deep assessments: On the possibility of decolonial digital technologies

Dorian Cavé; Rainer Rehak

doi:10.14512/tatup.7227

Authors

Dorian Cavé Research group “Digitalization, Sustainability, and Participation”, Weizenbaum Institute, Berlin (DE) https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5620-7535 dorian.cave@weizenbaum-institut.de
Rainer Rehak Research group “Digitalization, Sustainability, and Participation”, Weizenbaum Institute, Berlin (DE) https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8244-8532 rainer.rehak@weizenbaum-institut.de

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14512/tatup.7227

Keywords:

decolonial theory, social change, community networks, information and communication technology, sustainability

Abstract

Considering the coloniality of current digital tools and their increasingly massive global social and ecological impacts, we explore the question of what socio-cultural assemblages can contribute to deep civilizational transformations. Using a decolonial technology assessment approach, de-centring technologies by focusing on socio-technical praxes, this article examines what practices enable the use of information and communication tools to support communities and social movements in their emancipatory struggles while acknowledging the colonial infrastructures of those very technologies. We do so by examining documented examples of community networks deployed in different contexts to illustrate the challenges and promising perspectives arising from their approaches

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