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This session will discuss how digital tools and data systems perpetuate the control of marginalized populations through enduring structures of necropolitics. We begin with a critical overview of authoritarianism—distinguishing between regimes, personalities, and practices—to ground our discussion in foundational political science concepts. Situating digital control within the “dictator’s dilemma,” we examine how rulers deploy surveillance and manipulation not only to suppress dissent but also to navigate the precariousness arising from citizens’ hidden preferences. The core of our discussion explores how contemporary technologies, from algorithmic policing and biometric tracking to digital welfare systems, function as instruments of racial surveillance and data capitalism, reinforcing technocolonial relations under the guise of innovation and progress. We highlight how these digital tools discipline, exclude, or render certain lives disposable, and stress that their power is often rooted in global infrastructures operated by Western, Chinese, or Russian corporations. As countries in the Global South increasingly depend on such infrastructures, new asymmetries in information control and transnational reach reveal shifting landscapes of domination. Framed by lived experiences and critical perspectives, the conversation will interrogate the colonial logics embedded in global data infrastructures and consider how these mechanisms of control are normalized across different regions. Together, we ask: what forms of resistance and reimagination are possible in the face of digital regimes of power?
Invited speakers
Lisa Garbe is a research fellow in the Institutions and Political Inequality. She has earned a Ph.D. in political science from the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland and was a visiting researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute (2019/2020) and the Centre for Digital Governance at the Hertie School (2020/2021). Her research projects explore how digitalization affects core democratic institutions such as elections and shape government-citizen relationships. She is interested in both the intended consequences of government efforts to control internet access, such as censorship or shutdowns, and the unintended repercussions of government digitalization initiatives, including biometric identification systems. Lisa’s research has been published in major political science journals including Comparative Political Studies and the Journal of Peace Research, as well as interdisciplinary journals such as Information, Communication & Society and the International Journal of Communication, among others.
Saif Shahin is an Assistant Professor of Digital Culture and Director of the Digital South Research Lab at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. His research interests include critical data studies, digital politics, social movements, and computational social science. Much of his work explores data and technology as sociocultural phenomena, the production of power in digital discourses, and the politics of online identity construction. Shahin’s research has been published in high-impact journals such as New Media & Society, Information, Communication & Society, Social Science Computer Review, American Behavioral Scientist, and Communication Methods & Measures. He also serves as Associate Editor at Journal of Information Technology & Politics and is a member of the Editorial Boards of journals such as Communication Studies, and Chinese Journal of Communication. He earned his PhD from the Moody College of Communication, University of Texas at Austin.
Host
As a PhD candidate at InfoCitizen, Berta Fernández Nuez's research examines everyday datafication initiatives conducted by Kenyan NGOs and their interplay between development narratives and sensorial capabilities.