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.
Author(s): David Nemer
Series: The Information Society Series
Edition: 1
Publisher: The MIT Press
Year: 2022
Language: English
Commentary: TruePDF
Pages: 231
Tags: Information Technology: Social Aspects: Brazil; Information Society: Brazil; Digital Divide: Brazil; Internet And The Poor: Brazil; Slums: Brazil; Poor: Brazil; Marginality, Social: Brazil; Brazil: Social Conditions: 1985–
Cover
Half title
Series title
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Acknowledgments
1 | Introduction
Favelas: The site of oppression
Territory Of Good: Gurigica, São Benedito, Itararé, And Bairro Da Penha
Digital Inequalities In Vitória
Positionality
2 | Repairing the Broken City
Repair As Mundane Technology
Repairing The Keyboard
The Internet Of The Oppressed
Mobile Mundane Technology
Mundane Technology: Resistance As Repair
3 | Community Technology Centers as Mundane Technologies
Rethinking The Role Of Telecenters In Communities
The Bottom Of The Sociotechnical Pyramid
LAN Houses: Can A Mundane Technology Be For-Profit?
LAN Houses As Safe Social Places
Bringing Homework To The LAN House
4 | Social Media for Survival
Social Media: Facebook And Youtube
The Liberation Of The Selfie
Breaking The Culture Of Silence Through Selfies
5 | Proud Faveladas: Resisting Gendered Oppression in Territory of Good
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy Of The Oppressed, And Feminist Criticism
CTCs As Spaces Of Gender Oppression
Telecenter As Safe But Limited Spaces For Women
Digital Technologies Amplifying Gender Oppression
6 | Geographies of Oppression: Uncovering Spaces of Silencing
The Social Movement Of The Oppressed
Social Boundaries On Social Network Sites
The Orkutization Of Shoppings
"Is It Because I'm Black?"
7 | Technology of the Oppressor
From June Journeys To The Rise Of Bolsonaro
From Facebook To Whatsapp
The Rise Of Right-Wing Extremism
The Human Infrastructure Of Fake News
From Misinformation To Radicalization
Why Bolsonaro And The New Right Hate Paulo Freire?
8 | Technology of Hope: Reliving Technology of the Oppressed
Appendix | Methodology
Fieldwork Phases
Data Collection
Primary Data
Participant Observation
Interviews
Audio Recording
Focus Groups
Field Notes
Secondary Data
Government Documents
Data Analysis
Triangulation
References
Index
