At the Crossroads of Digital Imperialism & Digital Development

The global information economy has provided freedom-enhancing affordances for previously marginalized groups, but has also enabled extractive practices in the form of digital imperialism, or as others term it, data colonialism. For so-called “periphery” countries such as those in sub-Saharan Africa, the information economy represents an opportunity to chase the long-elusive quest for industrialization, now dubbed “digital industrialization”, “digital development” or “data for development.” Despite the optimism represented in the digital development policy discourse, the limits and potentials of any kind of development are heavily constrained by background conditions rooted in past global power imbalances and a colonial legacy of non-contextual laws and institutions. This panel examines questions of unequal power in the global digital economy (through U.S corporations, China, and Brussels (i.e. dominance through legal rules), and the ways in which this manifests itself in developing countries in Africa.

You can listen to At the Crossroads of Digital Imperialism & Digital Development online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

At the Crossroads of Digital Imperialism & Digital Development is an episode from Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society: Audio Fishbowl by Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.

This episode is 01:05:22 long.

This episode was published on May 28, 2021.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society: Audio Fishbowl when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.