831640

research-article2019
TVNXXX10.1177/1527476419831640Television & New MediaRicaurte

Article
Television & New Media
1­–16
Data Epistemologies, © The Author(s) 2019
Article reuse guidelines:
Coloniality of Power, and sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/1527476419831640
https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476419831640
Resistance journals.sagepub.com/home/tvn

Paola Ricaurte1,2

Abstract
Data assemblages amplify historical forms of colonization through a complex
arrangement of practices, materialities, territories, bodies, and subjectivities. Data-
centric epistemologies should be understood as an expression of the coloniality of
power manifested as the violent imposition of ways of being, thinking, and feeling
that leads to the expulsion of human beings from the social order, denies the
existence of alternative worlds and epistemologies, and threatens life on Earth. This
article develops a theoretical model to analyze the coloniality of power through data
and explores the multiple dimensions of coloniality as a framework for identifying
ways of resisting data colonization. Finally, this article suggests possible alternative
data epistemologies that are respectful of populations, cultural diversity, and
environments.

Keywords
decoloniality, data activism, datafication, digital colonialism, colonialism, capitalism

Big data form the epistemological ground of our historical moment. We live under a
new regime of knowledge production in which data processing through advanced sta-
tistics and prediction models informs decisions, actions, and relations. This knowledge
regime requires data scientists, advanced computing capacity, and a vast amount of
data to provide more accurate predictions for decision making in every field: security,
public administration, finance, health, commerce, labor, climate, education, transport.
Dominant discourses predict a near future in which a deep learning revolution and big

1Tecnológico de Monterrey, Ciudad de México, México

2Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

Corresponding Author:
Paola Ricaurte, Escuela de Humanidades y Educación, Tecnológico de Monterrey, CIIE 3er piso, Calle del
Puente 222, Col. Ejidos de Huipulco, Tlalpan, C.P. 14380, Ciudad de México, México.
Email: [email protected]
2 Television & New Media 00(0)

data will optimize the capabilities of machine learning (ML) to solve the most com-
plex tasks and foster economic growth. To accomplish this, the quality, diversity, and
amount of collected data need to increase. This epistemology, which represents a more
complex evolution of the post-positivist paradigm, is based on three assumptions: (1)
data reflects reality, (2) data analysis generates the most valuable and accurate knowl-
edge, and (3) the results of data processing can be used to make better decisions about
the world. Nevertheless, all these assumptions should be contested and analyzed in a
broader framework that considers how this form of knowledge production increases
capital concentration (West 2017), surveillance (Zuboff 2015), and colonization
(Couldry and Mejias 2018).
Data-driven rationality is supported by infrastructures of knowledge production
developed by states, corporations, and research centers situated mainly in Western
countries and an economic system that supports capital accumulation and economic
growth. This economic model, based on epistemic dominance, is reflected in research
agendas and funding. The reaches of this model extend to determining media coverage
and the advocacy agendas of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and activists
across the globe. Furthermore, entire infrastructure of the Internet supports transac-
tions, flows, and interactions that convert any form of existence in a possible source of
data. Our digital selves are quantified (Lupton 2015, 2016; Swan 2012, 2013), and our
universe of objects and spaces has likewise been transformed into knowledge that
fuels capital accumulation and power concentration.
We must also acknowledge the ways this regime is rooted in a complex process of
colonization through data by dispossession (Thatcher et al. 2016) and the capture of
life (Couldry and Mejias 2018) at a supranational level. In this article, I argue that this
data-centric rationality should be understood as an expression of the coloniality of
power (Mignolo 2014; Quijano 2000, 2007), manifested as the violent imposition of
ways of being, thinking, and feeling that leads to the expulsion of human beings from
the social order, denies the existence of alternative worlds and epistemologies (Escobar
2017; Santos 2009), and threatens life on Earth.
The regime of data colonialism includes the capture of data relations as defined by
Couldry and Mejias (2018, 2) not only as “new types of human relations that enable
the extraction of data for commodification” but also as the whole universe of human-
object and object-object interactions that has emerged with the development of the
“Internet of Things” (IoT), as well as biodata, and data from “non related to human-
derived activities, such as those from energy, water, roads, infrastructure networks and
natural resources” (Cordova et al. 2018). This has led to new forms of colonization
through data, grounded in material infrastructures and symbolic constructions that
reinforce these practices. Data extraction, storage, processing, and analysis are part of
a much broader process that is ripe for analysis through a decolonial lens.
The emergence of this trend is undeniable, but what are the implications of data
colonization for societies and individuals located on the economic margins? How do
the underlying power relations affect populations that exist outside this knowledge
order? Can data resistance be understood as an expression of epistemic disobedience?
This article develops a theoretical model to analyze the coloniality of power through
Ricaurte 3

data and explores the multiple dimensions of coloniality as a framework for identify-
ing ways of resisting data colonization. Finally, this article suggests possible alterna-
tive data frameworks and epistemologies that are respectful of populations, cultural
diversity, and environments.

The Coloniality of Power: An Analytical Model for

Understanding Data Colonization
The critical study of the data-centric regime (platform capitalism, surveillance capital-
ism, algorithmic capitalism) has focused on the logic of data production and the mon-
etization of data as a form of economic value, knowledge production, and, ultimately,
a way to quantify the value of life (Couldry and Hepp 2017). This data-centric episte-
mology is grounded on the economic, symbolic, emotional, physical, and material
conditions required for data collection: seduction (Han 2014), self-exploitation (Zafra
2017), self-tracking (Lupton 2015, 2016), and liquid surveillance (Bauman and Lyon
2013). Data-driven narratives guide our imaginaries and govern what it means to live
in contemporary urban societies.
Understanding this regime of rationality through the framework of political econ-
omy is only the first step toward grasping the extent to which it contributes to deepen-
ing all forms of structural violence and power concentration. A historical, local, and
decolonial perspective should unmask how the uneven distributions of power material-
ize as digital colonization, algorithmic violence, gender violence, class divides, and
racism, among other forms of violence. Data centered economies foster extractive mod-
els of resource exploitation, the violation of human rights, cultural exclusion, and eco-
cide. Data extractivism assumes that everything is a data source. In this view, life itself
is nothing more than a continuous flow of data. The pervasiveness of technologies and
data regimes in all spheres of existence crowd out alternative forms of being, thinking,
and sensing. The commodification of life and the establishment of an order mediated by
data relations limits the possibility of life outside the data regime: refusing to generate
data means exclusion.
One proposal to bring balance to the data extractivism model suggests compen-
sating individuals for their contribution to the digital economy and supporting com-
petitive markets (Arrieta et al. 2017; Posner and Weyl 2018). Sandel (2012, 122),
however, observes that this proposal assumes that the “commodification and priva-
tization of public life can be addressed simply by adjusting the background condi-
tions within which markets operate.” Apart from the practical difficulties of
implementing such a market-based solution, formalizing labor relationships with the
corporations that own our data will reinforce the complete submission of human life
to corporate interests, creating a society where everything is for sale (Sandel 2012).
The model further reinforces the role of markets as the ruling forces of society and
strengthens the myth of digital universalism (Chan 2013) that limits the develop-
ment of alternative socio-technical pluriverses (Escobar 2017). Confronting the
socio-technical assemblages that contribute to deepening existing structural
4 Television & New Media 00(0)

inequalities, domination under capitalism, and economic growth as ruling forces of

society requires a subtle approach that is incompatible with the market compensa-
tion model, which ignores the fact that the dominant epistemology that emerged in
Western countries exists in tension with other sensibilities and cultural expressions.
Multiethnic countries with high levels of social inequality are at greater risk of dou-
ble or triple marginalization through digital technologies and dominant data episte-
mologies. For this reason, studies of data and digital colonialism should take into
account the process of colonization that reproduces injustice within and across coun-
tries and enacts violence on gendered and racialized bodies, exacerbates class divi-
sions, damages our relationship with nature, excludes expressions of diversity and
traditional languages, and erases alternate visions of the world so that technology
can continue to operate as a renewed form of oppression.
In contrast to the compensation model, this article’s argument for decolonizing data
follows the decolonial model established in the work of Quijano (2000, 2007), Mignolo
(2014), and González Casanova (2006). It is possible to reframe the matrix of colonial
power in terms of data colonialism as an epistemic order based on data. We can re-
imagine forms of data resistance as epistemic disobedience. Decolonial thinking and
epistemic disobedience demand the transformation of the structure of power by taking
“control over labor/resources/product, over sex/resources/products, over authorities/
institutions/violence, and over intersubjectivity/knowledge/communication to the daily
life of the people” (Quijano 2000, 573). Colonialism and neocolonialism should be
understood in terms of their effects on power relations across borders and their reproduc-
tion by technocrats, universities, and governments within borders of colonized countries.
These forms of oppression should be seen through the lens of their effects on the bodies,
affects, and territories of marginalized and multiethnic populations. We must identify
how the multiple dimensions of colonization are interwoven and deployed as an internal,
international, and transnational process (González Casanova 1980) that perpetuates
exploitation, the extinction of alterity, and the diminishment of life on Earth.
The proposed analytical model approaches the coloniality of power through data as
a complex socio-technical assemblage that articulates material infrastructures as well
as biological, emotional, ecological, and symbolic dimensions that are generally
ignored in theoretical debates. While existing comprehensive models explain data
assemblages (Kitchin 2014, 25), the coloniality of power framework assumes that the
dimensions of knowing/being/sensing cannot be conceived independently and that
data colonization implies violent forms of domination. This understanding comprises
a new ontology and epistemology that rejects Western rationality and dualism and the
domination of alterity by any means. The coloniality of power (Table 1) integrates the
coloniality of knowing/being/sensing and can be deployed through interconnected
subdimensions: the coloniality of economy, politics, knowledge, being, sensing, and
nature. This model also considers the coloniality exerted through socio-technical sys-
tems, the materiality on which data colonialism is built.
This approach does not ignore traditional forms of oppression but offers a comple-
mentary framework that incorporates a multidimensional approach to enable decolo-
nial, intersectional and feminist analysis of data colonialism. It also helps locate and
Ricaurte 5

Table 1.  The Coloniality of Power and the Dimensions of Data Colonialism.a

The coloniality Economy Economic flows/data Data extractivism/Data capture

of power: flows (financial systems, (the process of collection, storage,
the markets, transport, health, access, analysis, and use of data):
coloniality mobility) Emerging industries and markets
of knowing, Political economy of data Data labor
being, The economic value of data
sensing
Political system Authority State capture Techno-corporativism
Power distribution Supra-national coloniality Law
Institutions
Knowledge Data Epistemologies Algorithmic violence/algorithmic
Geopolitics of knowledge capture:
Truth regimes: data-ism, privacy, digital
universalism, centers of knowledge
production
Knowledge propriety
Corporate understanding
Categorization
Being and Gender Capture of life:
sensing Sexuality Patriarchy
Body Servitude
Race Mobility
Language Self-expression
Subjectivity Affects: emotions, perceptions,
sensations
Techno-surveillance
Self-monitoring
Profiling
Desires
Interactions
Communication
Practices
Imaginaries of the self
Representations and narratives
Norms
Biodata
Nature Territory Capture of the commons:
Natural resources Land/space
Water
Air
Energy Biodiversity
Socio-technical Data infrastructures Technological capture:
systems and technological Software
development Hardware
Algorithms
Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning
Data centers/“The cloud”

aAn earlier version of these charts was published in Spanish (Ricaurte 2018).
6
Table 2.  Data Colonialism as a Multilayered Process.

Collect Storage and access Analyze Use/value/implications

Data Unstructured data flows Connectivity Data processing and Monetization of data: making sense of
extractivism Data in motion Capacity transformation Data data for different contexts and purposes
Data aggregation Velocity analysis (statistics and (Marketing, Politics, Health, Banking,
Real-time, systematic, Infrastructure-as-a- prediction capabilities) Insurance, Labour, Weather)
and pervasive data service (IaaS) Software-as-a-service (SaaS) Alliances among different actors:
collection Crowdsourced markets of corporations, governments, centers of
workers knowledge production
Human intelligence Epistemic dominance
Algorithmic Dominant Platforms Land and resources Artificial Intelligence Prediction models
violence Walled gardens Data centers Machine Learning Profiling
Algorithms and black Cloud services Data Science Reproduction of structural violence through
boxing Neuroscience prediction models and automatization:
Data-ism Linguistics Inequality
Spyware Discrimination
Data Brokers Surveillance
Control
Exploitation
Domination
Manipulation
Death
Agents/ Facebook Amazon Web Facebook Clients:
emergent Apple services Amazon Governments
industries NSO Group Gamma Google Cloud Google Companies
and markets International IBM Agencies
Equifax Palantir Universities
Cambridge Analytica
Ricaurte 7

classify a variety of resistance practices embedded in alternative critical frameworks.

The coloniality of power approach is in dialogue with approaches that explain the
matrix of domination (Collins 2018), illuminating resistance at the personal, commu-
nity, or systemic level, and the multiple roles that a subject can occupy in the interplay
of relationships of power.
This model explains how coloniality of power materializes as a set of processes that
determine the collection, storage, access, analysis, and use of data (Table 2), identifying
the multiple layers of data colonialism. Although the examples provided below (Table
2) relate to the dominant agents in the Western hemisphere, the model can be used to
understand the dynamics of geopolitics and technological development on a global
scale, such as mapping emergent actors in China and their disputes or alliances with the
West to conquer the markets in Africa and Latin America. A more detailed map of data
flows, knowledge production, infrastructures, hardware and software development,
industries, markets, and communities is needed to understand the nature of these com-
plex relationships.
These charts foreground the variables integral to the study of data colonialism.
The colonization of power model emphasizes the centrality of data and algorithms,
as well as the material and symbolic infrastructures, technologies, emerging busi-
ness models, actors, and practices that surround data collection, storage/access,
analysis, and use. It contextualizes data colonialism in an arrangement of processes
that are part of a dominant epistemology that translates into the domination of bod-
ies, affects, and territories. Furthermore, it clarifies the scope and direction of prac-
tices of resisting data colonization.

Resisting Data Colonization

The emergence of a growing field of critical studies on data epistemologies (boyd and
Crawford 2012; Couldry and Mejias 2018; Kitchin 2014) and resistance (Milan and
Gutiérrez 2015; Milan and Treré 2017; Milan and van der Velden 2016; Treré 2018)
demonstrates the urgency of addressing the data-centric regime from a perspective that
considers their growing complexity, dynamism, and the relevance of situated contexts.
Research on data activism (Milan and Gutiérrez 2015; Milan and van der Velden
2016), algorithmic resistance (Treré 2017, 2018), data justice (Dencik et al. 2016),
algorithmic accountability (Ananny and Crawford 2018; Diakopoulos 2016) explores
resistance practices and challenges for activists around the globe. We need more
research on the specificities of these practices across cultures: Do existing data resis-
tance practices consider other forms of oppression?
Milan and Treré (2017) call for reflection on datafication in unequal societies where
democracies are fragile using the South(s) as metaphoric spaces of “resistance, sub-
version, and creativity”. However, we must not lose sight of the fact that the dominant
data epistemology is embraced by governments, technocrats, and academics in non-
Western countries, leading to a process of internal colonization (González Casanova
1980). It is, therefore, essential to recognize resistance to datafication in these coun-
tries by identifying colonization as a process that is produced internally,
8 Television & New Media 00(0)

internationally, and transnationally at the systemic, community, and personal levels.

For this reason, mapping data colonization as an expression of the coloniality of power
adds a necessary layer of complexity to the analysis of resistance practices. Both prac-
tice and theory should unveil the power relations that reinforce oppression through
data assemblages and identify the locus, scope, and levels of resistance to data coloni-
zation in marginalized communities. Considering the diverse dimensions and levels of
colonization is particularly relevant to locating data practices and data cultures (Chan
2018) as a way to understand differences across countries and regions and the ways
communities and individuals are circumventing dominant data epistemologies through
action.

The Role of the State in Data Colonization

The coloniality of power model enables us to reflect on non-Western contexts affected
by this data-driven logic. We must understand that governments and public institutions
(including universities) act as central forces in the process of internal and international
data colonization at the systemic level by (1) developing legal frameworks (2) design-
ing public policy, (3) using artificial intelligence systems for public administration, (4)
hiring technological services, (5) acquiring products for public administration and sur-
veillance purposes, (6) implementing public policies and digital agendas, and (7) facil-
itating education and the development of labor forces. Governments become the main
clients of corporations (Table 2) that offer artificial intelligence services for public
decision making with corporate-owned data, the contracting of corporate services and
the acquisition of products (cyberdefense, surveillance, telecom infrastructure, data
centers, servers, IoT, smart cities, etc.), the implementation digital agendas (connectiv-
ity, hardware, software), and the development of education programs, curriculum,
content, and agendas for labor force development (training, agreements).
The perspectives of indigenous nations and communities are rarely considered in
debates surrounding digital agendas. Digital inclusion under this paradigm means
connecting those who are still outside the scope of the data extraction system; that is
the case for many indigenous communities in some Latin American countries. The
consequences of data collection and the participation of marginalized groups in the
digital economy has not been evaluated. In many cases, indigenous populations are
being recolonized through datafication and public policies regarding the implemen-
tation of digital literacy programs or digital citizenship policies. (Cordova 2018). In
this way, populations are colonized not only on an individual and community level
(through the use of Internet services, privative software and hardware, and the
dependence to Western digital social networks for communication) but also at an
institutional or systemic level, through the subordination of governments and insti-
tutions to the services of Western technology companies. Added to existing struc-
tural violence, this results in simultaneous internal, international, and transnational
colonization (González Casanova 1980).
Ricaurte 9

Not All Data Are Born Equal: The Mexican Scenario

The digital economy has ignited debate over the ways old and new hegemonies are
reproduced, reframed, and reconfigured. The data harvesting business model has
allowed the emergence of new companies with massive concentrations of capital.
These companies have more data and analysis capacity than nation states. Their
extraterritorial operation forces legislation to respond at different levels: cities,
states, and regions, but in fact, they can seldom keep pace with the dynamism of
technological transformations. We need to expand our idea of data capture beyond
the extraction of personal data through digital platforms, which is frequently at the
center of the debate. We must consider other types of valuable data including biodata
and data from objects, nature, and geophysical exploration (Cordova et al. 2018).
In the new world economic order, China, which has been dominated by manu-
facturing for years, challenges the United States in the field of big data, automa-
tion, and artificial intelligence, representing a new era in the supply of services
(Morozov 2018; West and Lansang 2018). Europe is also vying for a prominent
place in this rearrangement of the geopolitics of knowledge (Gershgorn 2018).
For the companies that dominate the data economy, Mexico is an attractive mar-
ket, as “a mine of low yield data, since it collects few—in comparison with its
potential and its population size—and exploits them even less” (Arreola 2018). In
this context, we must rethink the subordination of non-Western countries that are
providers of data and at the same time consumers of the services that Western
technological corporations offer. Data-rich corporations operate on a grand scale
and seek global dominance.
In countries like Mexico, where cultural diversity is erased by the State, and
weak institutions, inequality, gender violence, and impunity are rampant, we must
consider how the corporate model of data extractivism and rationality undermines
human rights and deepens social injustice. The model supports State control through
surveillance (Citizen Lab 2018; Ricaurte et al. 2014). Open data policies and trans-
parency efforts through the international Open Government Partnership initiative
act as a national and international mask, distracting public attention from the omis-
sions of data that are significant for vulnerable groups seeking justice. As we will
see, these omissions are critical challenges to the defense of human rights, specifi-
cally in the case of forced disappearances and gender violence during the presi-
dency of Enrique Peña Nieto in Mexico.

Data and the Defense of Human Rights: Between Data

Gaps and Data Extractivism
Every hour four people are killed in Mexico. By August 2018, twenty-two thousand
killings were reported, making it the deadliest year in the country’s recent history
(Angel 2018). During the first five years of the presidency of Enrique Peña Nieto
(2012–2018), who was a member of the Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI),
119,569 homicides and 22,983 disappearances were reported. Mexico has also been
declared “one of the western hemisphere’s deadliest countries for the media”
10 Television & New Media 00(0)

(Reporters Without Borders 2018), with fifty-five journalists killed and three disap-
pearing during Peña Nieto’s rule in some of the bloodiest attacks on journalists
according to the National Commission of Human Rights (Zárate 2018). This crisis
began with the so-called War on drugs, the national anti-crime policy implemented
by president Felipe Calderón (2006–2012), who was a member of the National
Action Party. During his sexenium, 132,065 people were killed, and 13,825 disap-
pearances were reported. During his presidency, fifty-two journalists were killed,
and fifteen disappeared. It was demonstrated also that many journalists were victims
of spyware attacks (Citizen Lab 2018). With a total of 234,000 violent deaths in
eleven years (Hernández 2017), Mexico is considered “the second world’s deadliest
conflict zone after Syria” (Champion 2017). Impunity and corruption have been
identified as the causes of the increasing human rights crisis (Reporters Withouth
Borders 2018; Solís 2015). Mexico ranked fourth on the Global Impunity Index
(Asmann 2017) and 135 out of 180 in the Corruption Perception Index (Transparency
International 2017).
Mexico has been recognized as an example of good Open Government practices,
but opacity has prevailed in the human rights crisis. Although the latest official figures
report 234,000 killings, the actual figures of people that have been killed or disap-
peared during the past twelve years are still uncertain. There are many reasons for this
discrepancy; Mexico does not have a comprehensive policy to guarantee systematic
and accurate data collection, which leads to information gaps in many public affairs.
Sometimes, official institutions do not record data or do not make data available as a
way to erase potential evidence of corruption and human rights violations. In other
cases, data are not accurate (Aroche 2017) or only become accessible years after being
collected. The prevalence of impunity means many crimes are not even reported. In
2016, according to the National Survey of Victimization and Perception of Public
Safety (ENVIPE), 93.6 percent of crimes in Mexico were unreported or did not result
in investigation.
Several citizen projects address this official data gap through maps and visualiza-
tions. The project https://elcri.men/ is one example of a citizen initiative that uses
official databases to analyze and visualize monthly data about delinquency in Mexico.
Disappeared People (Personas Desaparecidas http://personasdesaparecidas.org.mx/
db/db) names missing people to facilitate the demand for justice. Other citizen initia-
tives include the creation of genetic databases to identify the rest of disappeared peo-
ple (Escalada 2015). Femicides in Mexico (https://feminicidiosmx.crowdmap.com/),
which is the focus of this article, provides a detailed account of femicides that have
occurred in Mexico since 2016. This project, developed by the activist and geophysi-
cist Maria Salguero, offers more granular and accurate information about the femi-
cides than the official figures. The categories include age range of the victim,
relationship of the murderer to the victim, status of the femicide, how the victim was
murdered, crime scene, transfemicides, probable femicides, connected femicides, type
of femicides (direct, indirect), children in orphanages, patterns (multi-homicide, ado-
lescent homicide, etc.), the victim’s immigration status, and if it was a homophobic
femicide or other. Data are collected through the daily registry of femicides reported
Ricaurte 11

across several media and processed under the Latin American Model Protocol for the
investigation of gender-related killings of women (femicide/feminicide) (United
Nations 2013). Later, the data are visualized in Crowdmap, an open crowdmapping
platform developed by Ushahidi.1 María’s initiative was inspired by the increasing
violence against woman. It began with her personal concern over the lack of data
about crimes related to gender violence. Her background as geophysicist and activist
and her small business in downtown Mexico City allowed her to devote time and effort
to build a map that gives a more detailed sense of the nature of gender violence in
Mexico. Official figures do not offer detailed information about the crimes, nor do
they report all the victims. María’s map does not cover all the cases either: only the
deaths that appear on the news are registered. Nevertheless, her work reveals impor-
tant inconsistencies: by January 2018, the official figures reported 1,500 femicides,
while María’s map registered more than 3,800 (Nava 2018). For María, this map rep-
resents not only an enormous amount of work but a tremendous emotional effort: “I
have other activities, and that helps me cope with the pain, because good or bad, it is
a pain map” (Nava 2018). In Mexico, human rights defenders and activists, especially
women, are subject to high levels of emotional, physical, and mental stress (Gutiérrez
2018). The map of femicides allows us to analyze the implications of work with data
regarding femicides in the Mexican context. It also provides an example of citizen
resistance to the politics of government-enforced invisibility against marginalized and
vulnerable communities. The production of data and information about corruption,
organized crime, and human rights violations can lead to deadly consequences, as
reflected by the number of journalists murdered in Mexico. María’s approach not only
reveals the opacity of the government and their unwillingness to recognize gender
violence but also demonstrates the possibility of fighting back against the lack of
transparency on this issue. Her work contests the contradictory government discourses
that, on the one hand, claim transparency and data openness, and on the other hand, are
surveillance states that block access to data or the production of data to empower citi-
zens in the search of justice and to fight against impunity and corruption.
Mexico lacks data about sensitive issues, and citizen initiatives try to fill this infor-
mation gap. The map of femicides is a good example of how data can be used to fur-
ther justice and human rights, in this case honoring the memories of the thousands of
women killed by the structures of economic and patriarchal violence. The project dem-
onstrates a critical reflection on power, gender violence, technology, and knowledge
production through the use of categories endorsed by gender violence protocols that
reflect the roots of structural violence, with an explicit decision to use free software
and tools. This project demonstrates the value of citizen initiatives and the many chal-
lenges faced by those who work with sensitive data, data that relate to vulnerable com-
munities, and data that would make visible the coloniality of power and the matrix of
domination that conceals the continuity of economic, technological, political, physi-
cal, cognitive, and emotional forms of exclusion. At the same time, this initiative has
proven it is possible to generate a social reaction and counternarratives that contribute
to understanding the importance of the problem of gender violence. María’s story has
been covered by various media outlets and has been exhibited in museums.
12 Television & New Media 00(0)

Conclusion
In this article, I highlight the ways data colonialism and the coloniality of power mate-
rialize outside the Western context. In a country like Mexico, data colonization works
in two ways: at the institutional level, the government reproduces dominant data epis-
temologies as part of the discourse of efficiency and modernity, but also as a strategy
of control and surveillance; data acts as a form of internal colonization, reinforcing
domination of marginalized and vulnerable communities. In the case explored in this
article, structural violence has been reinforced in Mexico through the lack of data
about the femicides, which usually target young women of low income groups. As a
reaction and a form of subversion of this data inequality, citizen initiatives in search of
justice create alternative frameworks that make evident the inequality of power struc-
tures, the discourses about datafication and our digital lives, and the need for reflection
on the diversity of contexts in which data epistemologies drive multiple forms of
exclusion.
As data becomes the preferred way of representing knowledge in our time, we must
pay attention to the diverse worldviews that come into tension in an unequal world.
The increasing value of data raises questions for countries that do not have a voice in
the current data regime. Although data are used as a source for decision making in
public administration in many high-income economies, there is a lack of public aware-
ness and policy that considers the implications of the algorithmic turn of decision
making (Gurumurthy and Bharthur 2018) in countries and marginalized populations of
the world. New attention is needed to considering the risks of mathsplaining (O’Neil
2016) and the profound impact of data on reproducing discrimination (O’Neil 2016),
poverty (Eubanks 2018), and social oppression (Noble 2018) beyond borders. On the
other hand, it is also necessary to contemplate the ways, especially in countries with
great cultural diversity, the dominant data epistemology can help preserve life, tradi-
tional cultures, and environments.
Data governance and data regimes pose a huge social challenge. The complex proj-
ect of reconciling perspectives involves discussions that go beyond data industries and
economic models to address conceptions of reality and the prevalent epistemic frame-
works of Western societies. It is also necessary to consider the multifold nature of data
and the universe of possible data (not only personal but also data generated by objects,
nature, and living organisms) that are created and captured to amplify the possible
domination spheres.
Efforts to address the data colonialism model must open pathways for the possibil-
ity of technological sovereignty and data agency (Kennedy et al. 2015). Imagining
alternative digital futures (Chan 2013) and pluriverses (Escobar 2017) means defend-
ing other sensibilities, cultures, and ways of life that do not want to be governed by the
market. We can reverse extractive technologies and dominant data epistemologies in
favor of social justice, the defense of human rights and the rights of nature. The ana-
lytical framework proposed in this article is intended to contribute to the discussion
and offer new clues to situate data resistance practices from the South as part of the
bigger picture.
Ricaurte 13

Acknowledgments
I am especially grateful for the conversations and debates around data colonialism with my col-
leagues at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. A special thanks to Stefania Milan
and Emiliano Treré for opening the debate about data and the South and their efforts to build a
community around the topic.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/
or publication of this article: This article was written with the support of CONACYT, Mexico,
the Edmundo O’Gorman Program at Columbia University, and a fellowship from the Berkman
Klein Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University.

Note
1. Ushahidi, Crowdmapping platform. Ushahidi, Inc is an organization that uses the concept
of crowdsourcing for social activism and public accountability and what has been termed
activist mapping, combining social activism, citizen journalism, and geospatial data (data
relative to a particular location). Retrieved from http://civicactivism.buildingchangetrust.
org/tools-directory/Ushahidi-Crowdmapping-Platform-

ORCID iD
Paola Ricaurte https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9952-6659

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Author Biography
Paola Ricaurte is an associate professor in the School of Humanities and Education at
Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico. She was an Edmundo O’Gorman fellow in the Institute for
Latin American Studies (2018) at Columbia University. She is currently a fellow at the Berkman
Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University (2018–2019). She is a member of the digital
rights collective Enjambre Digital.