Can We Decolonize Technology?

Crafting Digital Sovereignty in an Age of Extraction

A worker in a gig economy platform checks their app - new assignments appear, wages fluctuate, and ratings shift, all dictated by an unseen algorithm. In an Indigenous community, activists push back against a government initiative that collects biometric data without consent. These aren't isolated incidents - they represent a fundamental power imbalance shaping a world driven by technology.

Data Colonialism in Our Daily Lives

The term "data colonialism" might sound academic, but its effects are deeply personal. When delivery workers must follow algorithmic orders about their routes and schedules, when neighborhoods become test sites for "smart city" surveillance without consent, when Indigenous knowledge is digitized and commercialized without community permission - we're witnessing new forms of colonization playing out through technology.

Today's tech giants convert human experiences into profitable data, extending histories of extraction and control into our digital lives. Rather than serving communities they’re extracted from, data becomes a commodity to be owned and traded, disconnected from the relationships and contexts that give it meaning.

Before I continue this (long) post, it is imperative to recognize that the most affected are always at the margins of society. I think about digital globalization from a decolonial perspective, and in that construct, those marginalized by technology are oftentimes in the Global South. Decolonization is not just about resisting these systems - it’s about imagining and building alternatives.

So, can we decolonize technology? If so, how do we move beyond critique to reclaim digital sovereignty in ways that empower people and communities?

Building Sovereignty from the Ground Up

When we see data colonialism at work - through algorithms, surveillance, and social media - we're witnessing how technology can concentrate power in corporate hands while diminishing agency. But rather than allowing corporations and states to dictate digital governance, movements for sovereignty are illustrating innovative approaches to regain control over technology.

What does resistance to data colonialism look like in practice? Concerns about data colonization, sovereignty, and digital rights are being combatted in different sectors:

• Worker Organizations challenge the surveillance and algorithmic control imposed by platform labor management systems

• Privacy Advocates develop tools and frameworks to protect personal data from commercial and state exploitation

• Indigenous Communities lead the charge in establishing governance frameworks ensuring that data aligns with community values and serves collective interests

Indigenous Innovation in Digital Sovereignty

Indigenous communities are pioneering approaches that reconnect digital systems to cultural values and collective governance:

• In Western Australia, the Ngaanyatjarra people developed a digital archive system that protects sacred knowledge through customized access protocols, ensuring cultural information remains under elder control

• The Digital Rangers program in the Northern Territory (Australia) combines traditional land management with digital tools, creating environmental monitoring systems that respect Indigenous knowledge frameworks

• Indigenous communities in the Brazilian Amazon (Alto Juruá Extractive Reserve) are building autonomous communications networks that strengthen cultural sovereignty while enabling environmental protection

These stories demonstrate how technological sovereignty enables communities to protect and strengthen their ways of life. They represent a global shift towards reclaiming control over digital systems, advancing legal and technical innovations that protect community agency.

Building Democratic Digital Infrastructure

Decolonizing technology isn’t just about policy - it’s about designing, governing, and owning systems that embed democratic governance and collective benefit into their technical architectures.

Decolonizing efforts may focus on:

• Decisions about data collection, storage, and access; how to make them collectively

• Access systems that reflect community values and priorities, rather than corporate imperatives

• Information flows that benefit communities rather than reinforcing extractive economies

Consider these examples:

• In rural South Africa, Zenzeleni has built a community-owned internet service provider, keeping both infrastructure and profits under local control

• The Guifi.net network in Spain proves that large-scale internet infrastructure can be run as a commons, serving over 100,000 users while remaining community-controlled

• Telecomunicaciones Indígenas Comunitarias: Indigenous communities in Mexico have established autonomous cellular networks, providing connectivity while maintaining cultural and political sovereignty

• Siyakhula Living Lab (South Africa): A rural digital infrastructure project that empowers underserved communities to create and manage their own ICT resources. These workshops empower Indigenous communities to reclaim spatial representation, using open-source mapping tools to challenge colonial cartography

These projects show that alternative models aren't just possible - they're already working at scale.

Decolonial Artificial Intelligence

Perhaps nowhere is the fight for technological sovereignty more urgent than in AI. As AI systems increasingly shape decisions about everything from hiring to healthcare, who develops these systems - and for whose benefit - becomes crucial. AI is not just a tool—it’s a mechanism that encodes power, often reinforcing racial, economic, and political inequalities.

Promising initiatives are emerging:

• The Masakhane project brings together African researchers developing natural language processing for African languages, challenging the dominance of English in AI

• Te Hiku media built an extensive audio-visual archive of Māori words, phrases, and is part of a global movement calling for digital sovereignty for indigenous cultures. All partnerships are protected under the Kaitiakitanga license, which ensures that data sovereignty remains within local communities and prohibits the use of data in applications that surveil, discriminate, or violate human rights

• DAIR (Distributed AI Research Institute), founded by Timnit Gebru, demonstrates how AI research can center marginalized voices and challenge corporate priorities

• AI Pirika is being used to preserve the unique language of the Ainu people, the indigenous inhabitants of Hokkaido in northeastern Japan, along with the vibrant cultural heritage imbued within the language. The project is a 5-year collaboration between the Society for Academic Research of Ainu Culture (SARAC), AI expert Professor Kenji Araki of Hokkaido University, and other technical and Ainu collaborators

• The Tech Workers Coalition collaborates with impacted communities to create AI accountability frameworks that give workers and residents oversight over automated decision systems

• UNESCO launched best practices and guidelines for indigenous data sovereignty in AI for over 800 Indigenous Peoples in Latin America and the Caribbean. Their report proposes public policies to integrate indigenous perspectives, and explores best practices, including:

• AI proposal to catalogue and identify form, aesthetic and iconographic elements of indigenous garments of the Altos de Chiapas region

• Technological Institute of Coatzacoalcos in Veracruz developed a bot using Natural Language Processing (NLP) to assess the correct pronunciation of words in indigenous languages, collecting phonetic symbols from voice models

• Technological Institute of Oaxaca made an app for interactive learning of the Tu'un Savi language, using visual computing in an AI-trained model

AI can either be a tool of oppression or a means of democratizing knowledge, access, and agency—depending on who designs, owns, and governs it. These projects demonstrate how AI can enhance rather than undermine community self-determination.

Weaving Decolonial Tech into Society

Decolonial approaches to technology already exist, but they cannot remain isolated experiments—they must be woven into broader social and economic systems. Alternative approaches to technology have emerged across many fields, but they remain on the fringes while corporate models dominate.

Making these alternatives viable requires action on multiple fronts:

• Infrastructure Development - Creating technical systems that embed community governance at their core

• Policy Innovation - Developing legal frameworks that protect collective rights while enabling experimentation

• Knowledge Networks - Connecting local initiatives to share resources, build capacity, and amplify impact

• Cultural Shift - Moving from seeing technology as something done to communities to something shaped by them. Decolonizing tech requires mass participation, not just expert-led initiatives

Rather than viewing the many examples listed in this post as fringe projects, decolonial tech must be institutionalized within public, legal, and economic systems.

Are Decolonial Approaches to Tech Viable?

We stand at a crucial moment in technological development. The systems being built today will profoundly shape social relations and democratic possibilities for generations. Rather than accepting data colonialism as inevitable, communities worldwide are demonstrating how technology can strengthen the social relationships that give data meaning.

A common critique of decolonial tech efforts is that they lack the scale, funding, or influence to challenge dominant systems. But history shows that dominant power structures are not immutable—they shift when people organize, innovate, and demand alternatives.

Will the inevitable transformations in society (that come with technological progress) deepen democracy or extend colonial patterns of extraction and control? The answer depends on our collective ability to imagine and build alternatives.