Virtual Colloquium: Aisha Kadiri – Data Sovereignty and Data Colonialism

In this week’s session of the Virtual Colloquium we will have Aisha Kadiri as our guests, her talk is titled “Data Sovereignty and Data Colonialism”

The term data sovereignty emerges as a call for self-determination and political participation in a world of accelerated digital capitalism rife with economic and political inequality. Simultaneously, the term data colonialism is gaining traction as the critique of colonial dynamics in and through digital technology. Although seldom a direct response to data colonialism, data sovereignty reads as a promise and a research agenda that could offer pathways towards a different digital future. However, sovereignty is not without a political history and carries a significant territorial baggage. The question arises: What is data sovereignty’s viability for a liberation from oppressive systems encoded in the digital transformation through algorithmic means?

Aisha Kadiri is a PhD candidate at the Ecole Normale Supérieure (PSL) in Paris and a researcher for Digital Africa. Her research interrogates data colonialism and the data subject from the viewpoint of of philosophy. At the moment, she particularly focuses on epistemic injustice, phenomenology, and African philosophy. 

For the speakers list of this semester and for information on registration, please have a look here.