"The edited volume Critical ICT4D highlights the need for a paradigm change in theorising, designing, and researching Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D). Engaging authors from the Majority World and entering a process of restoring epistemic justice in knowledge produc ... tion and ownership, the text: reflects on the histories and narratives around development programmes, their deep-rooted socio-political background, and the power relations integrated into or induced by such measures; problematises the current scholarship and practices through decolonial and pluralistic approaches built with an explicit perspective of resisting epistemic violence; constructs justice-enacting engagements of technologies with society." (Publisher description) more

"Although many data justice projects envision just datafied societies, their focus on participatory ‘solutions’ to remedy injustice leaves important discussions out. For example, there has been little discussion of the meaning of data justice and its participatory underpinnings in authoritarian ... contexts. Additionally, the subjects of data justice are treated as universal decision-making individuals unaffected by the procedures of datafication itself. To tackle such questions, this paper starts with studying the trajectory of data justice as a concept and reflects on both its data and justice elements. It conceptualises data as embedded within a network of associations opening up a multi-level, multiactor, intersectional understanding of data justice. Furthermore, it discusses five major conceptualisations of data justice based on social justice, capabilities, structural, sphere transgression, and abnormality of justice approaches. Discussing the limits and potentials of each of these categories, the paper argues that many of the existing participatory approaches are formulated within the neoliberal binary of choice: exit or voice (Hirschman, 1970). Transcending this binary and using postcolonial theories, the paper discusses the dehumanisation of individuals and groups as an integral part of datafication and underlines the inadequacy of digital harms, data protection, and privacy discourses in that regard. Finally, the paper reflects on the politics of data justice as an emancipatory concept capable of transforming standardised concepts such as digital literacy to liberating pedagogies for reclaiming the lost humanity of the oppressed (Freire, 1970) or evoking the possibility for multiple trajectories beyond the emerging hegemony of data capitalism." (Abstract) more