Technology and Global Social Justice - Dr Sebastián Lehuedé
Recent technological developments such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) are usually cast as innovative tools for bringing about an interconnected, prosperous, and green planet. In this course we will assess the extent to which such optimistic accounts hold true; especially when analysed from perspectives of social justice emerging from marginalised and dissenting groups from different regions of the world. Theoretical proposals such as decolonial thinking, Black feminism and Indigenous knowledges will be employed to unpack how and when recent technological developments can become complicit with the structures of power that have shaped global relations since the emergence of European modernity. As a whole, this course aims at (1) interrogating how the dominant understandings and applications of technology can reinforce global asymmetries and (2) exploring alternative imaginaries emerging from different regions of the world. Students who undertake this course will gain familiarity with cutting edge critical research on recent technological developments and strengthen their capacity to critique and rethink technological developments, policies, and practices from the perspective of the philosophies and histories of struggle emanating from the Global North and the South.