Technology of the oppressed : inequity and the digital mundane in favelas of Brazil / David Nemer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Nemer, David, 1983- author.

Series:

Information society series

The information society series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Information technology--Social aspects--Brazil--Vitória (Espírito Santo).

Information technology.

Information society--Brazil--Vitória (Espírito Santo).

Information society.

Digital divide--Brazil--Vitória (Espírito Santo).

Digital divide.

Internet and the poor--Brazil--Vitória (Espírito Santo).

Internet and the poor.

Slums--Brazil--Vitória (Espírito Santo).

Slums.

Poor--Brazil--Vitória (Espírito Santo).

Poor.

Marginality, Social--Brazil--Vitória (Espírito Santo).

Marginality, Social.

Vitória (Espírito Santo, Brazil)--Social conditions.

Vitória (Espírito Santo, Brazil).

Information technology--Social aspects.

Social conditions.

Brazil.

Physical Description:

xi, 218 pages : maps ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press, [2022]

Summary:

"A look at the role technology (ICTs) plays in the lives of Brazilian favela dwellers, which the author explores through his own notion of "mundane technologies""-- Provided by publisher.

"How Brazilian favela residents engage with and appropriate technologies, both to fight the oppression in their lives and to represent themselves in the world. Brazilian favelas are impoverished settlements usually located on hillsides or the outskirts of a city. In Technology of the Oppressed, David Nemer draws on extensive ethnographic fieldwork to provide a rich account of how favela residents engage with technology in community technology centers and in their everyday lives. Their stories reveal the structural violence of the information age. But they also show how those oppressed by technology don't just reject it, but consciously resist and appropriate it, and how their experiences with digital technologies enable them to navigate both digital and nondigital sources of oppression--and even, at times, to flourish. Nemer uses a decolonial and intersectional framework called Mundane Technology as an analytical tool to understand how digital technologies can simultaneously be sites of oppression and tools in the fight for freedom. Building on the work of the Brazilian educator and philosopher Paulo Freire, he shows how the favela residents appropriate everyday technologies--technological artifacts (cell phones, Facebook), operations (repair), and spaces (Telecenters and Lan Houses)--and use them to alleviate the oppression in their everyday lives. He also addresses the relationship of misinformation to radicalization and the rise of the new far right. Contrary to the simplistic techno-optimistic belief that technology will save the poor, even with access to technology these marginalized people face numerous sources of oppression, including technological biases, racism, classism, sexism, and censorship. Yet the spirit, love, community, resilience, and resistance of favela residents make possible their pursuit of freedom." -- Publisher's description

Contents:

Repairing the broken city

Community technology centers as mundane technologies

Social media for survival

Proud faveladas : resisting gendered oppression in territory of good

Geographies of oppression : uncovering spaces of silencing

Technology of the oppressor

Technology of hope : reliving technology of the oppressed.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 187-209) and index.

ISBN:

9780262543347

0262543346

OCLC:

1252411603