Data Epistemologies, The Coloniality of Power, and Resistance

Abstract

Data assemblages amplify historical forms of colonization through a complex arrangement of practices, materialities, territories, bodies, and subjectivities. Data-centric epistemologies should be understood as an expression of the coloniality of power manifested as the violent imposition of ways of being, thinking, and feeling that leads to the expulsion of human beings from the social order, denies the existence of alternative worlds and epistemologies, and threatens life on Earth. This article develops a theoretical model to analyze the coloniality of power through data and explores the multiple dimensions of coloniality as a framework for identifying ways of resisting data colonization. Finally, this article suggests possible alternative data epistemologies that are respectful of populations, cultural diversity, and environments.

Artificial Intelligence, Values, and Alignment

“…Individuals who use this method would still need to communicate the validity of their conclusions to other people who hold a different set of reasonable credences. 17 There is some concern that this phenomenon is already occurring within the field of AI (Ricaurte 2019;Mohamed et al 2020).…”

Hacia una privacidad colectiva: repensar las bases teóricas de la distinción público/privado en la economía de la vigilancia

“…Pero también otros cuya ética es más dudosa, por ejemplo: deducir la orientación sexual de una persona a través del reconocimiento facial (Wang y Kosinski, 2018), detectar enfermedades genéticas a partir del rostro de un paciente (Gurovich, Hanani, Bar, et al, 2019), inferir el grado de criminalidad de una persona por su rostro (Wu y Zhang, 2016), predecir en qué zonas se producirán más crímenes, calcular la probabilidad de que un preso llegue a ser reincidente o de que un denunciante esté mintiendo en su declaración, etc. (Suresh y Guttag, 2019;Kleinberg, Ludwig, Mullainathan y Sunstein, 2019;Ricaurte, 2019;Tayebi y Glasser, 2016;Hardyns y Rummens, 2017;Cui, 2016;Skeem y Lowenkamp, 2016;Fass, Heilbrun, DeMatteo y Fretz, 2008;Babuta, 2018).…”

Towards a Digital Reflexive Sociology: Using Wikipedia's Biographical Repository as a Reflexive Tool

“…Through e-mails, phone calls, Internet browsers, social networks, GPS, surveillance cameras, public utilities, transport passes or credit cards, our actions are continuously leaving digital traces that could be tracked, compiled and analyzed by specialists (Lazer et al 2009;Pentland 2014). This situation is undoubtedly ambivalent: on the one hand, it has generated new possibilities for social discrimination and exploitation of human beings (Couldry and Mejias 2018;Ricaurte 2019), but at the same time it offers an undeniable potential for understanding social phenomena of all kinds (Lazer et al 2009;Pentland 2014). Sociology, in this situation, should critically use digital data, being aware that this information is never neutralbut inevitably modeled by politically structured artifacts (Halford, Pope, and Weal 2013)-and that it is necessary to promote ethical standards for these emerging forms of research (Floridi 2013).…”