Dewesternisation or Decoloniality? Calling into Question the Planetary Future of Digital Sovereignty

Specter, Sovereignty, Surplus: Dewesternisation or Decoloniality? Calling into Question the Planetary Future of Digital Sovereignty

Speaker: Sebastián Lehuedé

Over the last decade, a number of groups have put into place digital sovereignty initiatives in different contexts to challenge the technological status quo. From state-led to bottom-up versions, most of these initiatives challenge the US technological hegemony. Against this backdrop, Dewesternisation or Decoloniality? Calling into Question the Planetary Future of Digital Sovereignty asks whether digital sovereignty can help advance what Latin American decolonial thinking calls decoloniality, i.e., enabling worlds that, unlike modernity, are not based on anthropocentric, heteropatriarchal, capitalist and racist structures.

Specter, Sovereignty, Surplus is a series of four conversations with artists and scholars on ideas around platforms and platformization as an expanded and broad context of online-offline relationships that brings bodies (human and non-human), digital conduits, physical infrastructures and the marketplace together. Rather than seeking additional definitions for platforms, these conversations look to offer methods of thinking around them, newer ways of perceiving and investigating interactions that stem from them.

About the speaker
Sebastián Lehuedé is a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Centre of Governance and Human Rights, University of Cambridge. Applying Latin American decolonial theory, Sebastián's research focuses on the governance of digital technology in relation to global social justice. His work has been published in top journals including Information, Communication & Society, and was recently recognised with the 2022 Dissertation Award from the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR).

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