This session invites submissions that explore the decolonizing possibilities of lived, digital experiences. From migrant workers in the gig economy, to software developers in the tech industry, and from the escalators of Hong Kong, to the estates of North London, digital lives are being increasingly shaped by discriminatory practices, protocols, infrastructures and politics. Whilst such techno-governmental assemblages may shape everyday decisions, movements and bodily practices, they are executed through an often hidden web of procedural, algorithmic, cartographic, or calculative means. At present, digital life for many remains resolutely, undeniably and unceasingly ‘colonised’ – both in everyday and spectacular variations; despite the fading, and always likely improbable, emancipatory gains from new digital platforms, data sources, initiatives and organizations.

This session invites proposals providing empirical, methodological and conceptual strategies to ‘decolonise the digital’. It seeks to give a platform to a multitude of decolonizing counterpoints to prevailing digital beliefs, narratives, pitches and projects that have further entrenched privileged, western forms of geographical knowledge-making. We actively seek a range of presentations beyond the academic conference paper. These may include (but are not limited to): activist engagements, short films, ‘playtests’, artistic demonstrations, interactive contributions, playful presentations, and poetry performances, as well as traditional ‘academic’ papers. Interdisciplinary, and multi-author collaborations are also encouraged.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Digital workplace politics
• Digital labour and the gig economy
• Digital navigation, risk, and safety
• Cartographic order, bordering and control
• Digital infrastructures, institutions and organization(s)
• Data and metrics
• Algorithmic power and protocol
• Security practices of sensing, screening, sorting, vetting
• Digital discrimination, injustice, law  
• Activism, protest, ethics and emancipation   
• Digital futures and speculative politics