Aisha Paulina Lami KADIRI

Axes de recherche

Titre de thèse :
« The GAFAM’s autopoiesis:
Digital colonialism and the creation of African subjectivities »

Directeur(rice) de thèse :
J. Peter Burgess (ENS)

Année académique d’inscription :
2019-2020

Résumé :
The reach of the big technology corporations Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple (GAFA) has become undeniable. With their global user bases, the GAFA are advancing a new configuration of wealth, power, and digital technology and have a significant impact on global society. To fully understand these developments and ruptures, this doctoral thesis will analyze the GAFA’s role as international actors using the tools of political philosophy. The overarching research question is: How do the GAFAM challenge and how do they perpetuate the underlying principles of the international system? The preliminary hypothesis in answering this question is that the GAFAM perpetuate the current coupling of capitalism and racism/coloniality through the creation of Black/African subjectivities. Throughout the dissertation, I aim to conceptualize the interplay between three different elements, (1) the digital, (2) the international, and (3) the racial. How do these three interact? Do they potentially reinforce each other? And if yes, in what ways does this co-constitution take place? With this in mind, the goal is to both problematize and re-conceptualize both the notion of “system” and “knowledge”.

Mots-clés :
GAFAM, Post-colonialism, Political theory, Technology and society.