Data colonialism: compelling and useful, but whither epistemes?

ABSTRACT

This commentary reviews the strengths of the concept of data colonialism, arguing that it makes a strong and useful contribution to the debates on how to make sense of the myriad effects of datafication. It points out, however, that the key decolonial insight about supposed European objectivity are weakly integrated into the concept: while it gestures to decoloniality, it is primarily about explaining datafication as resource extraction. As a result, the concept has non-decolonial implications as well.

KEYWORDS:

• Data colonialism
• decoloniality
• modernity/coloniality
• postcolonialism
• datafication

View addendum:

Data colonialism: compelling and useful, but whither epistemes?

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

This article refers to:

Data colonialism: compelling and useful, but whither epistemes?

Response

The decolonial turn is on the road to contingency

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Vineet Thakur and James Shires for helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Densua Mumford

Densua Mumford is Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs, Leiden University. Her research interests include the international relations and foreign policies of African states, the discursive context of regionalism in the Global South, and decolonial perspectives on world politics [email: [email protected]].