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Cited by 48Decolonial Thought and EpistemologiesEthics and Social Impacts of AILatin American Cultural Politics

More than Extraction: Rethinking Data's Colonial Political Economy

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Gray, Catriona·2023·International Political Sociology
DOI 10.1093/ips/olad007
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Abstract

This article offers a novel conceptual framework to enable empirical investigation and analysis of the different ways in which contemporary data practices are entangled with colonialism. Departing from recent theorizations of the politics and political economy of data and data-driven technologies, including the theory of so-called data colonialism, I argue for a historicized and differentiated account of the colonial processes of dispossession at stake in datafication and the proliferation of data-dependent technologies. By undertaking a broad engagement with decolonial thinking, I demonstrate the need to move beyond an examination of how everyday life is datafied to be extracted like a natural resource. I show that such analogies are inapt and occlude colonial relations reproduced through datafication. Our understanding of these processes would find a firmer footing not in historical analogy, but in our colonial present. I propose that the modality of data's power lies not in the extraction of value as such, but in the interaction of orders of knowledge with orders of value. This reordering both acts as a motor of further colonial epistemic violence and creates the conditions for a new apparatus of racialized dispossession. Giving examples from migration governance, I set out its targets, objects, and operations.

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Authors
Gray, C.
Affiliations
University of Bath (GB)
Corresponding author
Gray, Catriona
ORCID
Gray, Catriona
Venue
International Political Sociology
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Published
2023-03-20
Volume
17
Issue
2
ISSN
  • 1749-5679 (ISSN-L)
  • 1749-5687
DOI
10.1093/ips/olad007
OpenAlex
W4361246717
Cited by
48
References
3
Citations by year
2026: 15 · 2025: 17 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 8
FWCI
58.96
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
International Political Sociology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
Funders
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/S023437/1)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Anthropology › Decolonial Thought and Epistemologies
  • Social Sciences › Safety Research › Ethics and Social Impacts of AI
  • Social Sciences › Anthropology › Latin American Cultural Politics
Keywords
data colonialism, political economy of data, datafication, decolonial theory, colonialism, dispossession, epistemic violence, migration governance, data extraction

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