A Brief Introduction to Decolonial Computing

Does computing need to be decolonized, and if so, how should such decolonization be effected? This short essay introduces a recent proposal at the fringes of computing, which attempts to engage these and other related questions

Islam Between Inclusion and Exclusion: A (Decolonial) Frame Problem

In this chapter, the 'Frame Problem' in AI is mobilized as a trope in order to engage the 'question' concerning the inclusion and/or exclusion of Islam (and Muslims) from European – and, more broadly, 'Western' – society. Adopting a decolonial perspective, wherein body-political, geo-political and theo-political concerns are centered, the meaning and applicability of categorical dichotomies such as 'religion' and 'politics' and their relationship to the historical entanglement of 'religion' and 'race' in the formation of the modern world are interrogated in the context of understanding the nature of the relationship between Islam and Europe/'the West'. It is argued that the tendency within Western liberal democratic discourses to (1) frame the problem of Islamophobia and 'the Muslim question' in terms of misrepresentation – that is, misinformation, disinformation and 'distortion' of the flow of information – and (2) frame the issue of "Islam and Europe/'the West'" in terms of inclusion and/or exclusion of the members of a 'religious' minority into a post-modern, post- Christian/'secular' polity circumvents disclosure of the violent historically-constituted structural background or 'horizon' against which such 'options' are generated. The essay concludes by sketching some possible decolonial responses to this critical and existentially-problematic state of affairs

Race: the difference that makes a difference

During the last two decades, critical enquiry into the nature of race has begun to enter the philosophical mainstream. The same period has also witnessed the emergence of an increasingly visible discourse about the nature of information within a diverse range of popular and academic settings. What is yet to emerge, however, is engagement at the interface of the two disciplines – critical race theory and the philosophy of information. In this paper, I shall attempt to contribute towards the emergence of such a field of enquiry by using a reflexive hermeneutic (or interpretative) approach to analyze the concept of race from an information-theoretical perspective, while reflexively analyzing the concept of information from a critical race-theoretical perspective. In order to facilitate a more concrete enquiry, the concept of information formulated by cyberneticist Gregory Bateson and the concept of race formulated by philosopher Charles W Mills will be placed at the centre of analysis. Crucially, both concepts can be shown to have a connection to the critical philosophy of Immanuel Kant, thereby justifying their selection as topics of examination on critical reflexive hermeneutic grounds

Prolegomenon to the Decolonization of Internet Governance

Does Internet governance need to be decolonized? If so, why? How can Internet governance be ‘colonial’ (thereby necessitating decolonization) if the colonial project is a thing of the past? And even if Internet governance is a colonial phenomenon, what might it mean to ‘decolonize’ Internet governance, and how should this be carried out

Envisioning a Decolonial Digital Mental Health

The field of digital mental health is making strides in the application of technology to broaden access to care. We critically examine how these technology-mediated forms of care might amplify historical injustices, and erase minoritized experiences and expressions of mental distress and illness. We draw on decolonial thought and critiques of identity-based algorithmic bias to analyze the underlying power relations impacting digital mental health technologies today, and envision new pathways towards a decolonial digital mental health. We argue that a decolonial digital mental health is one that centers lived experience over rigid classification, is conscious of structural factors that infuence mental wellbeing, and is fundamentally designed to deter the creation of power differentials that prevent people from having agency over their care. Stemming from this vision, we make recommendations for how researchers and designers can support more equitable futures for people experiencing mental distress and illness

The decolonial turn in data and technology research: what is at stake and where is it heading?

This article traces the emergence of a ‘decolonial turn’ in critical technology and data studies that analyzes the transformation of society through data extraction for profit. First, we offer a genealogy of concepts over the last decade from different fields related to this decolonial turn, including work that explores the connection between racism and data. Second, we discuss the commonalities and differences between these approaches and our own proposal, the data colonialism thesis (Couldry & Mejias, 2018, 2019) to clarify how, together, they provide a distinctive take on data and technology. Third, we summarize the most important advantages of the decolonial turn as a transhistorical tool to understand the continuities between colonialism and capitalism. Finally, some wider implications of a decolonial approach to data are explored, and broad theoretical and practical opportunities for resistance are identified

Adopting an African Standpoint in HCI4D::A Provocation

While studies in HCI4D have been advanced by the shift of perspective from developmental studies to a range of other discourses, current analytical concepts for understanding the sociality of society in Africa have arguably led to some misinterpretations of the place of technology. This provocation suggests that an ‘African Standpoint’ based on a combination of various standpoint positionalities and the Wittgensteinian approach of Winch can offer conceptual and analytical sensitivities for articulating social relations, transnational engagements and the conceptualisation of technological innovation. This provides an approach for seeing and accounting for things as they are – right here, right there and right now – and not some idealised conception of an African reality

The extractive infrastructures of contact tracing apps

The COVID-19 pandemic will go down in history as a major crisis, with calls for debt moratoriums that are expected to have gruesome effects in the Global South. Another tale of this crisis that would come to dominate COVID-19 news across the world was a new technological application: the contact tracing apps. In this article, we argue that both accounts ‐ economic implications for the Global South and the ideology of techno-solutionism ‐ are closely related. We map the phenomenon of the tracing app onto past and present wealth accumulations. To understand these exploitative realities, we focus on the implications of contact tracing apps and their relation with extractive technologies as we build on the notion racial capitalism. By presenting themselves in isolation of capitalism and extractivism, contact tracing apps hide raw realities, concealing the supply chains that allow the production of these technologies and the exploitative conditions of labour that make their computational magic manifest itself. As a result of this artificial separation, the technological solutionism of contract tracing apps is ultimately presented as a moral choice between life and death. We regard our work as requiring continuous undoing ‐ a necessary but unfinished formal dismantling of colonial structures through decolonial resistance

What does it mean to decolonise Computing and IT - Another dumb buzzword or re-envisaging all cultures and knowledge systems for how the world is framed?

There is widespread discussion in higher education (HE) of ‘decolonising’ the university and curricula, which arguably grew from the 2015 Rhodes Must Fall movement firstly in the University of Cape Town, South Africa and then to Oxford University, UK, with the demand by students to remove the statue of Cecil Rhodes, a white supremacist. This direct action against institutional racism has its roots in the humanities and social sciences yet there is now a growing interest in how to understand decolonisation in science and technology and what might it mean to decolonise a technical subject such as computing and information technology education. Some Universities such as Keele (2021) are already producing staff guides on how to decolonise the curriculum but assuming there is no universal template, decolonising must be contextual to the discipline and subject area. In this paper we describe the approach we have been taking at the Open University in the School of Computing and Communications, as we consider new ways of knowing in our decolonial transformation. Computing is arguably one of the trickiest areas for such work for several reasons. Firstly, we argue that computing needs to be viewed as a sociotechnical field as this helps to bring into focus issues tied up with social relations, political and economic. Secondly our starting point is that as university educators we consciously or unconsciously adopt a Eurocentric/West-centric perspective in production of knowledge and teaching content. We are also complicit because through our educational institution we perpetuate Western dominance, racialised neoliberal capitalism, and the exclusion of the marginalised. Thirdly decolonial change should not be mistaken as an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion initiative as decolonisation goes further and deeper in challenging the Europe/USA centred colonial lens (Ali, 2016). Acknowledging the power and privilege of the white majority in the West, requires reflection on identity, to think about values and to question and ultimately transform what we think and know. As educators, we have a particular role and responsibility in influencing future computing practices. Our students will go on to design, build and maintain the devices, artifacts, and infrastructures of the future. It is imperative that educators are equipped and supported to recognise and challenge colonial legacies and neo-colonial tendencies in what we teach and how we teach it. Decolonisation is therefore a complex challenge for HE change and there are many ways of framing, imaging and enacting the decolonisation of higher education within the discipline of computing and IT. Yet as a contested term what does it mean to decolonise? This article will consider our practical experiences of the research project undertaken as we strive to commit to decolonial ethics and politics. References: [1] Ali, S. M. (2016) ‘A Brief Introduction to Decolonial Computing’. XRDS: Crossroads, The ACM Magazine for Students, 22(4), pp. 16-21. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1145/2930886 (Accessed 7 November 2022). [2] Keele University (2021) ‘Decolonising the Curriculum Staff Guide’, Available at: https://www.keele.ac.uk/equalitydiversity/equalityframeworksandactivities/decolonisingthecurriculum/Keele%20University%20DTC%20Staff%20Guide%20.pdf (Accessed 15 November 2022)