Paper 203: Data Colonialism and the Future of Postcolonial Studies: Reading Fanon and Coetzee Through Loomba’s Globalization Theory

This blog is a part of the assignment of Paper 203: The Postcolonial Studies

Data Colonialism and the Future of Postcolonial Studies: Reading Fanon and Coetzee Through Loomba’s Globalization Theory

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Academic Details:

• Name: Rajdeep A. Bavaliya
• Roll No.: 21
• Enrollment No.: 5108240006
• Sem.: 3
• Batch: 2024-26
• E-mail: rajdeepbavaliya2@gmail.com

Assignment Details:

• Paper Name: The Postcolonial Studies
• Paper No.: 203
• Paper Code: 22408
• Unit: 4 - 1.) Globalization and the Future of Postcolonial Studies – Ania Loomba – Colonialism/Postcolonialism – 2nd Edition
• Topic: Data Colonialism and the Future of Postcolonial Studies: Reading Fanon and Coetzee Through Loomba’s Globalization Theory
• Submitted To: Smt. Sujata Binoy Gardi, Department of English, Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University
• Submitted Date: November 7, 2025

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• Sentences: 295
• Reading time: 18m 47s

Abstract:

This paper explores how the contemporary “data colonialism” of Big Tech and surveillance capitalism reproduces the structures of classical imperialism. We argue that Frantz Fanon’s and J. M. Coetzee’s postcolonial critiques, understood through Ania Loomba’s theory of globalization, shed light on today’s algorithmic power. Fanon’s analysis of colonial violence, objectification, and liberation helps us see how data extraction and platform dominance continue material and psychological dispossession. Likewise, Coetzee’s Foe dramatizes the silencing of subaltern voices and the struggle for narrative authority; its portrayal of Friday’s muteness mirrors how algorithms make marginalized people digitally invisible. Drawing on Loomba, we show that global data flows and tech giants function as new “metropoles” of extraction (global North and South alike), making data the 21st-century raw material and enforcing neocolonial hierarchies. The interdisciplinary synthesis reveals that data colonialism—through algorithmic control, digital labor, and surveillance—must be viewed as a novel imperial apparatus. We conclude that postcolonial theory must expand its remit to address digital dispossession, algorithmic oppression, and platform imperialism, continuing the decolonial project in the age of data.

Keywords:

data colonialism; algorithmic power; narrative authority; silencing; globalization; digital empire; neocolonialism; surveillance capitalism; subalternity; decolonization; representational violence.

Research Question:

How do Fanon’s ideas, Coetzee’s portrayal of silenced subalterns, and Loomba’s globalization analysis together illuminate the mechanisms of data-driven neocolonialism and its implications for postcolonial studies?

Hypothesis:

Data colonialism operates as a continuation of colonial domination in the digital age, and applying Fanon’s decolonization theory and Coetzee’s narrative critique—within Loomba’s globalization framework—will reveal how contemporary digital systems replicate traditional imperial power structures.

I. Introduction

Classical colonialism forcibly extracted land, labor, and resources from subject peoples while imposing cultural domination. In the twenty-first century, colonial power has taken new forms in the digital realm. Large corporations and states now extract intimate data from users worldwide, control information flows, and shape cultural narratives. This paper examines these developments through the lens of “data colonialism” – the idea that Big Tech and data-driven capitalism replicate colonial patterns of expropriation and control. We begin by defining data colonialism (Ⅱ) and situating it in the continuity of colonial extraction and dominance. We then interpret Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth (Ⅲ) and J. M. Coetzee’s novel Foe (Ⅳ) in light of digital power. Fanon’s critique of colonial violence and his vision of liberation help us understand how digital technologies objectify and exploit formerly colonized peoples. Coetzee’s depiction of Friday’s enforced silence and Susan Barton’s quest for authorship anticipate how algorithmic systems can erase marginalized voices and impose narrative control. Ania Loomba’s globalization theory (Ⅴ) provides a theoretical framework: it reminds us that capitalism and power now operate through transnational networks, implicating both the Global North and South. We will argue (Ⅵ) that Fanon, Coetzee, and Loomba converge on themes of erasure, authority, extraction, and resistance—showing that digital power structures embody the same logic as historical colonialism. Finally (Ⅶ), we consider what this means for the future of postcolonial studies: expanding the field to address surveillance capitalism, AI bias, platform imperialism, and indigenous data sovereignty. Throughout, we integrate scholarly arguments and evidence. For example, Nick Couldry and Ulises Mejias emphasize that modern data appropriation “combines the predatory extractive practices of historical colonialism with the abstract quantification methods of computing,” making our social lives “an ‘open’ resource for extraction” (Couldry and Mejias). We examine such claims critically, testing whether they fully capture the digital age. The thesis guiding this paper is that data colonialism – through algorithmic governance, digital labor exploitation, and global surveillance capitalism – functions as a new form of imperial domination. Fanon’s decolonial theory and Coetzee’s critique of narrative authority, read via Loomba’s lens of globalization, show how modern data regimes reproduce the silencing, extraction, and hierarchy of classical colonialism.

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II. Theoretical Framework: What Is Data Colonialism?

“Data colonialism” describes how contemporary capitalism extracts and commodifies personal data in ways analogous to historical colonialism. The term captures the idea that life itself is being appropriated by digital empires. Shoshana Zuboff argues that surveillance capitalism “[unilaterally claims] human experience as free raw material for translation into behavioral data” (Zuboff). In other words, our browsing clicks, searches, and interactions become the new natural resources of the digital age. Likewise, Couldry and Mejias contend that the digital economy relies on “data relations” – “new types of human relations which enable the extraction of data for commodification.” They write: “Social life all over the globe becomes an ‘open’ resource for extraction that is somehow ‘just there’ for capital.” In this view, everyday communication, social media posts, even our movement through city streets (via cell phones), feed into vast databases. Data, like colonial land, is claimed and monetized without the informed consent of its “owner” – the person generating it.

This process involves algorithmic governance. Code-driven algorithms profile users and make decisions that affect education, credit, and even criminal justice, often without transparency. Such systems may replicate the biases of their creators, perpetuating racial or class hierarchies. For example, Professor Michael Barrett and colleagues note that AI projects often exploit global inequalities: they identify a “data ‘colonisation’” where “workers in the Global South… clean up data and develop algorithms for the benefit of those in the Global North.” In other words, model training is outsourced to low-paid data-labelers in developing countries, reinforcing an exploitative division of labor (Barrett). Moreover, digital platforms rely on surveillance and algorithmic optimization to shape behavior – from targeted advertising to content recommendation – further entrenching corporate control over how we think and act.

These features mirror colonial logic: historical colonialism used new technologies of its time (guns, steamships, census statistics) to subjugate populations. In the digital era, data and algorithms are the new tools. Nick Couldry and Ulises Mejias summarize: “Data colonialism combines the predatory extractive practices of historical colonialism with the abstract quantification methods of computing.” (Couldry and Mejias). Just as colonialists once surveyed and mapped colonies (turning land and people into statistics), today’s “digital cartographers” map human behavior. Big Tech giants (the new “metropoles”) extract digital resources to feed global capitalism. As a Stanford Press blurb notes, “the historic appropriation of land, bodies, and natural resources is mirrored today in this new era of pervasive datafication”. In short, data is the twenty-first-century raw material, turned into profit by platforms (Zuboff; Couldry and Mejias).

At the same time, this framework must be assessed critically. For instance, Couldry and Mejias warn that this new stage of capitalism is still emerging: “it is premature to map the forms of capitalism that will emerge from [data colonialism] on a global scale”. We should note differences: unlike colonial land grabs, data is intangible and co-produced (users actively generate it). Some critics argue that calling it “colonialism” might stretch the analogy. But the essential point – that extraction and dispossession continue under capitalism in new guise – is persuasive. Loomba’s theories remind us that capitalism inherently seeks new resources and markets; data has clearly become one of those (Loomba). This section has outlined how data colonialism is conceptualized: as the appropriation of human life, behavior, and knowledge by techno-capitalism, echoing colonial-era expropriation. In the following sections, we will see how Fanon’s and Coetzee’s insights resonate with this phenomenon and what they add to its critique.

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III. Fanon and the Logic of Extraction: From Land to Data

Frantz Fanon

Frantz Fanon provides a powerful language for understanding how colonial power distorts subjectivity and labor. For Fanon, colonialism was not just territorial conquest but “the whole complex of huge apparatuses of economic exploitation” and psychological subjugation. He emphasizes the violence used to objectify and oppress the colonized: their bodies and cultures are treated as “things” to be controlled. In The Wretched of the Earth, he writes that colonialism fabricates the colonized identity: “the colonist is right when he says he ‘knows’ [the colonized]. It is the colonist who fabricated and continues to fabricate the colonized subject.” (Fanon). This insight highlights how colonizers impose narratives and categories upon colonized peoples, stripping them of agency. In the digital age, we see a parallel: algorithms and platforms often categorize users into data profiles, subjecting them to opaque criteria. The user does not “know” themselves in the market’s eyes until the platform defines them. As Fanon suggests, the colonized (or datified) subject is molded by the very system that claims to “serve” them.

Fanon also analyzes extraction and alienation. Classical colonialism extracted mineral wealth and agricultural produce for distant markets, leaving local economies impoverished. Analogously, modern capitalism mines users’ data and labor. In developing countries, millions perform menial digital tasks (like content moderation or image labeling) in precarious conditions – a form of digital labor extraction. As Barrett notes, this can be framed as data “colonization” of work in the Global South. Fanon’s concept of the exploitative economy resonates: he saw the colonized’s land, body, and work all expropriated for the colonizer’s profit. Today, our digital “wages” might be free connectivity or apps, but these come at the cost of surveillance and commodified labor (e.g., gig work, microwork). Fanon’s focus on economic exploitation reminds us that digital convenience often masks new inequities.

Crucially, Fanon views violence as at the core of decolonization and transformation. He writes that “Decolonization is the creation of new men”. In Fanon’s famous words, “The ‘thing’ colonized becomes a man through the very process of liberation.” (Fanon). For him, meaningful change requires overthrowing the colonial order in order to (re)forge new identities free from imposed inferiority. This “new humanism” has a digital echo: efforts to regain control over data and representation can be seen as a kind of digital liberation. Movements for data privacy, indigenous data sovereignty, or net neutrality seek to empower users – to make us “new men” who control, rather than are controlled by, data flows. For example, activists in the Global South are demanding local data ownership laws and pushing back against global tech monopolies. In Fanonian terms, this is part of a broader struggle to challenge the current “colonial” status quo of the internet.

At the same time, we must critically assess Fanon’s ideas in context. Fanon’s world was one of direct colonial rule and armed revolution. Digital colonialism is less overtly violent, which could suggest a divergence. However, Fanon also analyzes psycho-political oppression. The sense of inferiority instilled by colonial narratives (“you are a savage until I teach you to be human”) can be likened to the alienation users feel when their identities are quantified. Zuboff, for instance, notes that surveillance capitalism reshapes users’ sense of self by predicting and modifying behavior. Fanon’s insistence on the colonized subject’s psychological struggle reminds us that digital domination is not only economic but cultural: it can induce feelings of inferiority (think of how algorithms rank and recommend content, implicitly valuing certain perspectives). We might critique Fanon for underestimating the role of information and digital culture, but his analysis of dehumanization remains relevant.

In sum, Fanon’s concepts – economic extraction, the fabrication of subaltern identity, and the necessity of liberation – translate into a digital age framework. Tech empires extract value from our data and labor much as colonialists did from land and bodies. As Couldry and Mejias put it, this portends “a new stage of capitalism in which the appropriation of human life through data will be central.”** (Couldry and Mejias). Thus, Fanon prepares us to see the colonizing logic of Big Tech: users are turned into data points and laborers, and the promise of digital progress masks deep inequalities.

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IV. Coetzee’s Foe: Narrative Silencing as Algorithmic Power

First edition

J. M. Coetzee’s novel Foe (1986) reimagines Robinson Crusoe to spotlight the politics of storytelling and voice. The most striking figure is Friday, Crusoe’s enslaved companion, who is literally mute (his tongue was cut out). Coetzee uses Friday’s silence to symbolize the erasure of subaltern voices. As one critic observes, “Friday’s tongue—or its absence—represents how white-authored fiction and history erases the horror of enslavement.” Because Friday cannot speak or write, “he never gets to express either his perspective or his interiority.” (Coetzee). Instead, Susan Barton (Crusoe’s castaway acquaintance) narrates the story, often speaking for Friday. Susan even boasts, “I say he is a laundryman and he is a laundryman... I say he is a cannibal and he is a cannibal.” By asserting these identities, Susan literally fabricates Friday’s identity – echoing Fanon’s “fabrication” by the colonist. In Foe, the author (literally Mr. Foe, a stand-in for Defoe) and the speaking narrator have control over Friday’s fate. The silencing of Friday anticipates how marginalized lives can be omitted or misrepresented by dominant media.

We can interpret Friday’s predicament as a metaphor for contemporary algorithmic invisibility. Many people, especially the poor and racialized, find themselves rendered “mute” by digital systems. For example, social media algorithms may rarely show the content of activists from the Global South, effectively silencing them. Voice recognition and translation tools often fail minority languages, leaving speakers unheard on global platforms. Coetzee’s novel asks: who has the authority to tell the story? In Foe, Susan struggles to get Mr. Foe to include Friday’s perspective; similarly today, tech platforms (the “Foes” of our time) largely ignore user voices unless it serves their narrative. Coetzee’s insight – that controlling representation is controlling reality – aligns with debates on data ownership: algorithms determine which images and voices get amplified, shaping history.

A key scene highlights Susan’s self-awareness about power: she confesses that sometimes she “use[s] words only as the shortest way to subject [Friday] to [her] will.” In other words, even well-intentioned narrators can manipulate subalterns by speaking for them. In digital terms, content moderators or AI translators may “smooth” or “correct” user-generated material, effectively imposing external interpretations. The algorithmic control of narrative can thus be subtle: framing, filtering, and recommending content become acts of power. If Friday’s language were data, Susan (or Foe) is the proprietary algorithm claiming ownership.

Coetzee’s treatment of authorship is also telling. The novel’s meta-question — who is the true author of Friday’s story, Barton or Foe — resonates with debates over data ownership. Susan tries to be credited as the author of the account, but Mr. Foe insists on being recognized as “the author.” This power struggle parallels how platform owners claim authorship over user data. For instance, when you post on a social network, the platform’s terms often assert rights over that content, effectively making the company the “author” and commodifying the user’s narrative. Coetzee’s Foe thus anticipates a world where algorithms (like authors) rewrite reality: we see this in AI-generated news and deepfakes that can fabricate events. Susan’s helplessness in asserting her (and Friday’s) voice warns us that under digital colonialism, the “official narrative” is determined by those who control the system (the Foes), not by those who lived the experiences.

Again, critical nuance is needed. Some might question if Foe really speaks to digital issues. But Coetzee’s dramatization of representation shows how power can operate through language and silence – whether by 18th-century pen or 21st-century code. We should be wary of taking every metaphor literally; Friday’s mutilation was physical, whereas algorithmic silencing is often structural. Nevertheless, the core idea holds: “To speak is to be in a position to use a certain syntax…above all to assume a culture, to support the weight of civilization” – Fanon’s words on language could describe being connected online. In Coetzee’s narrative, Friday lacks even the possibility of speech, and in today’s data regimes, marginalized groups can similarly lack a “digital presence” without permission. Coetzee thus enriches our understanding of “representational violence”: he shows that even access to the means of telling one’s story (pen, page, code) can be withheld. Recognizing this analogy helps to see algorithms not just as neutral filters but as active agents in the new colonial project of whose voices count.

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V. Ania Loomba’s Globalization Theory and Digital Empire

Ania Loomba’s work on colonialism and globalization reminds us to view power in broad, transnational terms. She urges that postcolonial analysis adapt to a world where old center-periphery models are refracted through global networks. Loomba observes that after 9/11, “it is harder than ever to see our world as simply ‘postcolonial’… it is more urgent than ever to think about the questions of domination and resistance”. In other words, new global dynamics – including capitalism’s reach – have transformed, not ended, colonial relationships. Today’s tech giants (Google, Meta, Alibaba, Tencent, etc.) are not confined to Western capitals; Loomba’s insight applies as America and China co-emerge as dual poles of “data colonialism”. Couldry and Mejias note that “data colonialism involves not one pole of colonial power (‘the West’), but at least two: the USA and China,” making distinctions of North/South less straightforward. Loomba’s framework helps us understand this complexity: power flows in multiple directions and across borders.

In Loomba’s view, capitalism continually seeks new raw materials and markets. Historically that meant rubber, oil, and minerals; now, data are the coveted resource. Big Tech firms effectively act as new imperial centers, using foreign data while exporting surveillance technologies abroad. For example, Chinese tech companies have built much of Africa’s 3G and 4G infrastructure; thus, data and connectivity flow through networks controlled by new global players (as Neema Iyer highlights). Loomba stresses that globalization dissolves simple notions of geographic hierarchy: wealth and power traverse borders. Similarly, digital colonialism is global in scope – citizens everywhere are subject to the same algorithms. As Iyer notes, foreign tech companies today “prevent the development of local tech ecosystems” and impose extractive models across continents. In Loomba’s terms, the Global South is simultaneously host to and victim of these digital “metropoles.”

Loomba also examines how global capitalism interacts with local contexts. She argues that resistance can be mounted on multiple scales, from grassroots to global networks. In the digital age, global platforms reproduce inequalities: for instance, content moderation policies that originated in Western norms can misclassify or censor non-Western communication as hate speech or spam. The technology itself often carries cultural biases. Loomba’s insights suggest examining the networks of influence – how Silicon Valley designers shape apps used worldwide, or how data flows funnel wealth back to global tech hubs. This aligns with arguments that global data pipelines are a form of economic neocolonialism. The globalization lens also draws attention to transnational activism: digital decolonization becomes a global struggle, echoing Loomba’s view that postcolonial subjects now inhabit a world of interconnected flows.

By reading Loomba, we avoid seeing data colonialism as just another Western project; instead, we see it as a function of global capitalism that transcends old binary. It allows us to say, for example, that a Facebook engineer in the U.S. and a TikTok developer in China are both agents of extraction, serving their home-country forms of techno-imperialism. Data, like colonial cotton or gold, is a global commodity. Loomba’s broader point is that analyzing these phenomena requires moving beyond narrow “First World/Third World” categories. Indeed, platform imperialism now spans continents, with both Northern and Eastern powers involved. We should note, though, that Loomba emphasizes heterogeneity: global flows also allow subaltern voices to connect internationally (e.g. diaspora networks, decentralized activism). Thus, globalization is double-edged – it facilitates both domination (by global capital) and new forms of resistance (cross-border solidarity). Incorporating Loomba thus enriches our framework: it suggests that data colonialism is not geographically isolated, and that responses can be global as well.

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VI. Intersections: Fanon + Coetzee + Loomba = A New Postcolonial Framework

When combined, the ideas of Fanon, Coetzee, and Loomba highlight four interlocking themes of contemporary data colonialism:

• Erasure and Invisibility: Fanon shows how colonial regimes render colonized peoples as objects; Coetzee dramatizes the literal silencing of Friday; Loomba alerts us to how globalization dissolves borders, making it easy to forget or suppress local voices. Together, they point to how digital algorithms can erase the subaltern. For instance, marginalized communities often find their languages untranslated by AI, or their content buried by search rankings. As one analysis notes, Friday’s physical removal of his tongue symbolizes “the erasure of Black voices and experiences… inherently violent.” (Coetzee). Similarly, Fanon’s colonized subject is caught between identities, unseen on both sides, a psychological “thing” (Fanon). In the age of data, the “mute” (Friday) is anyone whose profile the system never builds – their lives invisible to the record-keepers.
• Voice and Authority: Who gets to tell the story? Coetzee and Fanon both emphasize that authority lies with the storyteller. Susan Barton struggles for authorship against Mr. Foe, just as colonized writers struggled against colonial narratives. Today, algorithms often decide which stories become visible. Facebook’s trending topics or YouTube’s recommendations effectively “write” global history for many users, overshadowing subaltern accounts. By resonating with Fanon’s idea that claiming voice is an act of liberation (the “new human” emerging through decolonization), we understand that digital literacy and platform ownership are modern battlegrounds for narrative control. Loomba’s perspective reminds us this is not a one-way flow: people can also use global networks to reclaim voice (e.g., digital archives, self-publishing). The interplay of these thinkers suggests that challenging algorithmic authority is itself a decolonial struggle.
• Extraction: All three address extraction, whether of labor, land, or data. Fanon detailed how colonial economies exploited the land and the colonized’s labor. He notes that the colonizer’s wealth “derives… from the colonial system”. Coetzee illustrates extraction of culture: Friday’s personal history is consumed but never reciprocated. Loomba frames extraction in globalization: capitalism must find new “raw materials,” which now include personal data and attention. Data colonialism extends this extraction to new realms: our clicks and posts are mined relentlessly. Couldry and Mejias capture this: “Data colonialism involves… the appropriation of human life through data.” In sum, while Fanon and Coetzee wrote of slaves picking cotton or narrators retelling colonial fables, their critiques map neatly onto data miners harvesting personal information in global digital plantations.
• Resistance: Each author also gestures toward resistance. Fanon glorifies decolonization’s revolutionary upheaval (“new men” born of the struggle). Coetzee gives Susan Barton moments of defiance: she resists Mr. Foe’s authority and fights to have the real story told. Loomba emphasizes that postcolonial resistance must evolve but continues under globalization (for example, by leveraging new media to connect struggles across borders). In the digital context, resistance takes forms like encryption, privacy advocacy, digital self-determination movements, and even hacking. For example, movements for “Indigenous data sovereignty” insist that tribal communities govern their data – echoing Fanon’s insistence that the colonized themselves must define their destiny. However, one must note critiques: Fanon’s violent model is not straightforwardly applicable to online activism, which may often be decentralized or nonviolent. Similarly, Coetzee offers more pessimism than clear tactics. Yet, their works encourage an ethically engaged stance: if colonial structures are reproduced online, then decolonial politics must also extend to cyberspace.

These intersections show that despite different contexts, all three thinkers address how power shapes knowledge and economy. They converge on the notion that histories are contested terrain – whether fought with guns, pens, or code. Importantly, they underscore that the current order is not immutable: coercive algorithms and exploitative platforms can be challenged by critical awareness and collective action. This composite framework suggests new research directions, such as analyzing digital activism as a form of anti-colonial struggle, or studying AI biases through the lens of Fanon’s theories of racism and dehumanization.

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VII. The Future of Postcolonial Studies

The above analysis implies that postcolonial studies must evolve to meet 21st-century challenges. As Loomba suggests, rigid categories like “center/periphery” are giving way to fluid networks; similarly, postcolonialists must grapple with how digital technologies reconfigure power. The “colonial present” now includes cyberspace. Future scholarship might examine algorithmic governance as a continuation of colonial legacies: for instance, by exploring how AI discrimination replicates structural bias (paralleling what Achille Mbembe calls necropolitics, or control over life and death, in algorithmic form). Mbembe’s idea that sovereignty now operates by deciding who may live and who must die can be read into discussions of whose data is erased or whose identity is policed online.

A new postcolonial lens should also focus on surveillance capitalism (Zuboff) and platform imperialism (Couldry and others). Issues like data privacy, mass surveillance, and AI-driven social sorting require theorizing as forms of new colonial control. For example, facial recognition technology may disproportionately target racialized bodies – a phenomenon which postcolonial critics should analyze as a kind of representational violence. Similarly, indigenous communities’ fight for data sovereignty (the right to govern their own data) is a natural extension of earlier land and resource sovereignty struggles. Postcolonial theory can help articulate why these fights matter as part of ongoing decolonization.

Moreover, globalization introduces environmental dimensions. Scholars must also consider how digital extraction intersects with the Anthropocene. Fanon and Mbembe might inspire thinking about how climate data is controlled, or how tech waste (rare minerals in phones) draws new colonial lines, echoing Iyer’s observation that digital extractivism perpetuates Africa’s dependency on global markets.

Practically, the field will likely embrace interdisciplinary methods: combining media studies, development studies, and critical race theory with classical postcolonial literature analysis. Research on “Algorithmic subalternity,” “digital apartheid,” or “critical data studies” are emergent areas. Engaging with Shoshana Zuboff, Nick Couldry, Ulises Mejias, Mbembe, and newer voices will be key. This paper’s approach – reading Fanon and Coetzee through Loomba – exemplifies that fusion. The final question for postcolonial studies may well be: How can we decolonize the digital world? Loomba’s call for “future-oriented postcolonial critique” resonates powerfully here.

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VIII. Conclusion

In conclusion, Fanon’s anticolonial philosophy and Coetzee’s narrative critique remain deeply relevant for understanding our data-driven age. Both anticipated aspects of digital power. Fanon showed how economic exploitation and psychological domination are central to colonialism; today, Big Tech companies exploit users’ data and shape our subjectivity through personalized algorithms. Coetzee revealed how silenced voices and contested authorship lie at the heart of colonial storytelling; today, algorithmic platforms can literally silence or amplify communities at scale. Read through Loomba’s globalization framework, their insights converge: data colonialism is the modern manifestation of imperial hierarchies.

Fanon teaches us that liberation requires recognizing our agency. Coetzee warns that the struggle over who controls narratives will only intensify. Loomba reminds us that resistance must be multinational and attuned to new capitalist structures. Together, they offer a robust critique of “algorithmic empire.” Our analysis suggests that postcolonial studies must now incorporate the digital realm into its theorization of power and resistance. As Loomba has observed, in our interconnected world “it is more urgent than ever to think about the questions of dominations and resistance that have been raised by anti-colonial movements.” (Loomba) Only by heeding this call can scholars help society navigate a future where data is the most contested territory.

References:

Barrett, Michael, et al. “Risk and the Future of AI: Algorithmic Bias, Data Colonialism, and Marginalization.” Information and Organization, vol. 34, 2024, pp. 100-110. Cambridge Judge Business School, 31 Oct. 2023, www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/insight.

Coetzee, J. M. Foe. Penguin Books, 1986.

Couldry, Nick, and Ulises A. Mejias. The Costs of Connection: How Data Is Colonizing Human Life and Appropriating It for Capitalism. Stanford UP, 2019.

Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. Grove Press, 1963.

Iyer, Neema. “Digital Extractivism in Africa Mirrors Colonial Practices.” Stanford HAI, 15 Aug. 2022, hai.stanford.edu/news/neema-iyer-digital-extractivism-africa-mirrors-colonial-practices.

Loomba, Ania. Colonialism/Postcolonialism. 2nd ed., Routledge, 2005.

Mbembe, Achille. Critique of Black Reason. Translated by Laurent Dubois, Duke UP, 2017.

Said, Edward. Orientalism. Pantheon Books, 1978.

Zuboff, Shoshana. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. PublicAffairs, 2019.