In the recent years, the relationship between race and digital technologies has gained new momentum. Emergent forms of engineered inequalities, from the governance of life and death through biotechnologies and algorithms to the commodification of bodies in platform capitalism or the biopolitical management of b/ordering are now at the core of the study of the dynamics of power. The aim of this course is to understand how racial logics enter the design of technology and how race itself operates as a tool of division that undermines social justice. Moving beyond both technological determinism and the idea of technological neutrality, we will explore how social practices, norms, and relations are a constitutive part of technological design and function. In doing so, we will not only discuss the role technologies play in the production, stabilization, and destabilization of social (power) relations, democracy, and knowledge, but also how race itself functions as a technology. Unpacking multiple black boxes, we will arrive at a nuanced understanding of intersectional perspectives for the study of race and technology. Reading classics in social theory as well as recent contributions to feminist and critical race studies, the participants will gain a broad understanding of the interstices of the study of race, racism, and technology. In addition, we will consider contributions from art and culture to expand our themes of interest.

Last modified

• 06/10/2022

Creator

• Barla, Josef
• Kluzik, Vicky

DOI

• https://doi.org/10.21985/n2-p951-0758

Keyword

• sociology

Date created

• 2021

Rights statement

• In Copyright

License

• Creative Commons BY-NC Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International