Geography of digital hope: An optimistic perspective on digital labor and infrastructure from the Global South.
This article frames digital infrastructures as "geographies of digital hope," to propose new epistemologies rooted in everyday digital practices of the marginalized majority in the Global South. We critically examine the prevailing pessimistic bias in contemporary media scholarship, with an overemph...
| Publicado en: | Big Data & Society Vol. 12; no. 4; pp. 1 - 6 |
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| Autores principales: | , |
| Formato: | Artículo |
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Sage Publications Inc.
Dec2025
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=191630865&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 191630865 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 20539517 KG5N jtl: Big Data & Society issn: 20539517 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: Dec2025 vid: 12 iid: 4 pid: 344 pub: Sage Publications Inc. artinfo: ui: 191630865 10.1177/20539517251381685 ppf: 1 ppct: 5 formats: tig: atl: Geography of digital hope: An optimistic perspective on digital labor and infrastructure from the Global South. aug: au: Arora, Payal He, Guanqin affil: Department of Media and Culture Studies, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands su: Developing countries Digital inclusion Labor process Algorithmic bias Electronic surveillance Digital technology Poor people sug: subj: Developing countries Digital inclusion Labor process Algorithmic bias Electronic surveillance Digital technology Poor people keyword: algorithms of oppression Digital geographies digital labor Global South optimism pessimism bias solidarities surveillance capitalism ab: This article frames digital infrastructures as "geographies of digital hope," to propose new epistemologies rooted in everyday digital practices of the marginalized majority in the Global South. We critically examine the prevailing pessimistic bias in contemporary media scholarship, with an overemphasis on the extractive and exploitative dimensions of digital labor and infrastructures, and the underemphasis of the enablement and empowering aspects of these digital terrains. This commentary calls for reassessing the value of infrastructures from the everyday digital negotiations and lived realities with media of communities in the Global South. We propose a conceptual counterforce to dominant pessimistic and deterministic narratives—surveillance capitalism and algorithms of oppression—with alternative framings of surveillance of care and algorithms of aspiration, to uncover how marginalized users leverage emergent and existing digital spaces, despite the harms and risks, to create new forms of livelihoods, solidarities, care-giving, and agencies to carve their everyday futures. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y dt: @attributes: year: 2025 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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