Digital Colonialism and Epistemic Dependence. A Postcolonial Critique of Power and Knowledge
Digital Colonialism and Epistemic Dependence. A Postcolonial Critique of Power and Knowledge

Summary/Abstract: This research sheds light on the troubling relationship between power and knowledge in the context of digital transformations, via a postcolonial reading of how digitization is performing epistemic dependencies. It starts from the hypothesis that digital decentralization hides behind it a new Western centrality that reinforces the soft control of epistemic dependency in the form of knowledge production and circulation. The research investigates the contention of the authors that colonial logic remains evident in the digital space, by employing concepts from philosophers like Foucault, Deleuze, Jaspers, and Morin - and utilizing a critical analytical lens. The findings of the study suggest liberation is no longer confined to the free of political or military liberation, but an epistemic and cultural liberation, and that what is being passed off as opportunities for digital participation and openness it is an illusion that will entrench epistemic dependency largely controlled by big corporations or large Western research centers. The study results conclude that the challenge of digital colonialism requires developing local epistemic strategies that are independent, which can repatriate knowledge, liberated episteme from the cultural space of Western centrality.

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