Surveillance in the Majority World Network

Surveillance in the Majority World Newsletter | November 2025 We share research/stories/podcasts that caught our attention.

Surveillance in the Majority World Network's November newsletter is out!

surveillance-majority-world.net/2025/11/25/s...

Surveillance in the Majority World Newsletter | July 2025 We share research/stories/podcasts that caught our attention.

📣Surveillance in the Majority world Network's newsletter is out!

Surveillance in the Majority World Newsletter | June 2025 We share research/stories/podcasts that caught our attention.

📣 Surveillance in the Majority World Newsletter for June 2025 is out!

- South to South AI Accountability CoLab [Civil Society Program]
- Why Latin America Is Unlikely to Mirror EU AI Regulation [News Analysis]
- US Issues Warning Over Zambia’s Cybersecurity Law [Policy Alert]
- Biometric Data in Gaza: Coercive Conditions for Aid Access [Advocacy Statement]

- Artificial Intelligence for Development (AI4D): A Contested Notion [Research Article]
- Uninvited Protagonists: The Networked Agency of Venezuelan Platform Data Workers [Research Article]
- ID System Challenges for Refugees in Kenya [Research Report]

Surveillance in the Majority World Newsletter | May 2025 We share research/stories/podcasts that caught our attention.

Surveillance in the Majority World's May Newsletter is out! featuring:
- Our attendance report of the Digital Rights and Inclusion Forum 2025, Lusaka, Zambia! hashtag#DRIF25
- Altman's Worldcoin Ordered to Delete Biometric Data in Kenya Over Privacy Breach

> The debates on ‘Silicon Savannah’:
“The state as auteur: Timing digitisation in Africa’s Silicon Savannah” by @ayonadatta.bsky.social & @fennaimara.bsky.social
- De Gruyter Handbook of Digital Criminology: An Interdisciplinary Guide
Edited by Mareile Kaufmann & @heidimorklomell.bsky.social

The debates on ‘Silicon Savannah’:
“Making sense of funding inequalities in the venture capital space: a state of the art review paper with views from Africa”
& “Mapping the uneven financial geographies of venture capital in ‘Silicon Savannah’, Kenya” by Ben Mkalama & @econgeo.bsky.social

- Digital Public Infrastructures: A Critical Inquiry by @bulletprooflama.bsky.social
- An Intellectual History of Digital Colonialism
- Special Issue: Latin American Critical Data Studies (editorial by @grohmannrafael.bsky.social)
- USA Disappeared Tracker: A Data-Driven Call to Action

Surveillance in the Majority World Newsletter | Apr 2025 We share research/stories/podcasts that caught our attention.

📣Our April Surveillance in the Majority World Newsletter is out!
In this issue, you will read about:
- Morocco’s Surveillance Infrastructure Expands Ahead of Sports Mega-Events
- Indian Income Tax Bill 2025: Expanding Digital Search & Seizure Powers

7- Research Article: Algorithmic Bureaucracy in Peru by Diego Cerna Aragon and Luis García
8- The Surveillance Footprint in Africa Threatens Privacy and Data Protection

3- Activists at RightsCon Address U.S. Retreat from Digital Rights
4- Paper: EU’s Pre-Criminalization of African Migrants Through AI and Surveillance by Loren B Landau
5- India to Host the Next Global AI Summit
6- Israeli Military Developing AI System Using Palestinian Surveillance Data

Surveillance in the Majority World Newsletter | Mar 2025 We share research/stories/podcasts that caught our attention.

📣Surveillance in the Majority World March newsletter is out!
In this issue, you will read about:
1- New Book: Digital Surveillance in Africa by @phatcontroller.bsky.social & Admire Mare
2- Surveillance & Society Journal’s Dialogue Section on Authoritarian Surveillance (@survstudiesnet.bsky.social)

Surveillance in the Majority World Newsletter | Feb 2025 We share research/stories/podcasts that caught our attention.

📣Our February newsletter is out!
Read more on indigenous statistics, policing a postcolonial city, the political economy of smart surveillance in Curitiba, Brazil, Morocco’s AI-Enhanced governance of borders, predatory data & call for proposals for Africa Spyware & Digital Surveillance!

Teaser flyer for the conference. Includes location (King's College, London, and date, 23-24 June)

Polisky Dictatorsky
Yesterday we finished another great season of the virtual workshop! Thank you all for joining!!
While we prepare the Spring season, we want to let you know we will be organizing another in-person conference over the summer! The CfP will be out soon. Stay tuned!

If you are a West African early career scholar in the US or at home, check out these funding and professional development opportunities.

This is open to West African scholars across disciplines.

Deadline: Feb 23, 2025

Learn more & apply here: www.westafricanresearchassociation.org/fellowships/

How do autocrats stay in power?

Our new research dives into the strategies of political control—repression, co-optation, and indoctrination—used across 229 autocracies from 1946 to 2010. What we found will change the way you think about authoritarian resilience. 🧵👇

Opening page of the "Museum of Stolen History" series in The Continent, showing the drawing of a mostly empty museum showcase with just one object: the wooden sculpture of Ngwi Ndem on the upper left shelf.

Highly recommended new series in @thecontinent.org on looted #CulturalHeritage & #colonialism:

"The Museum of Stolen History", curated by
@shola-lawal.bsky.social, art direction by @wynonamutisi.bsky.social - Part 1 on #NgwiNdem from #Cameroon, pp. 19-22:

www.thecontinent.org/_files/ugd/2...

What went wrong with ‘Pakistan’s Dubai’? – inside the Chinese initiative that is prompting terror attacks The small port city of Gwadar has a huge new airport funded by China, but local suspicion of Beijing’s true intentions threatens to wreck the project

Fascinating piece on the problems faced by one of #China's Belt and Road post- #smartcity / free port projects in #Pakistan... empire-building isn't easy.

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

The Threat of AI and Technology to Immigrant Justice As technological innovation accelerates, so too do its potential harms, particularly for immigrant communities. AI and tech tools are increasingly being weaponized in surveillance, enforcement, detent...

Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees holds a webinar on the "Threat of AI and Technology to Immigrant Justice" on Wednesday, February 5, 2025 - 9:45am to 11:00am PST. Register at the link.

Big thanks to @jonasvalente.bsky.social, @cambridgeuppolisci.bsky.social, @icij.org, @eff.org!

Surveillance in the Majority World Newsletter | Jan 2024 We share research/stories/podcasts that caught our attention.

Our January newsletter is out!
Read about Syrian surveillance revelation after Assad's fall, India’s draft data protection rules, Latin America’s 2024 overview of AI Integration, @oiioxford.bsky.social's Global Southing Internet workshop & New OA Book on Digital Sovereignty in the BRICS Countries.

A reminder to join our panel at the International Public Policy Conference in Chiang Mai/Thailand this July! The abstract submission deadline is 31 Jan ⏰ The conference has a thematic focus on the Global South and I look very much forward to all the amazing discussions!

OII | Global Southing Internet, Data and AI Studies Workshop This workshop aims to facilitate dialogues between UK scholars and approaches from the Global South in the field of Internet and Data Studies.

🤖 Register and submit your abstract for the two-days workshop at the @oiioxford.bsky.social on:

"Global Southing Internet, Data and AI Studies Workshop" organised by @jonasvalente.bsky.social

🗓️10:00, Tuesday 25 March - 17:00, Wednesday 26 March, 2025

👉 www.oii.ox.ac.uk/news-events/...

18 books to read from 2024 Check out these exciting books about Africa

Really excited to see that my book "Smugglers and States" (Columbia 2024) has made it into ThisWeekinAfrica's list of "18 books to read from 2024" - and in such wonderful company!

thisweekinafrica.substack.com/p/18-books-t...

Lawsuit Calls Scale AI ‘the Sordid Underbelly of the Generative AI Industry’ CEO Alexandr Wang is named in the suit, which cites emotional distress for contractors who worked on a self-harm-prevention project for Meta.

The sad thing is, this H1-B dust-up distracts from the fact that tech companies can (and are) increasingly outsource the vast majority of these jobs to workers who never have to step foot on American soil. ScaleAI is the most important company no one is talking about.

www.inc.com/sam-blum/sca...

On Africa and Self-Reproducing Automata - George Caffentzis Midnight Notes' autonomist Marxist considerations on self-reproducing automata in Africa.

Haven't read the Eye of the Master, but I gather it's largely historical? Trying to think about why gen ai, now, for what ends, and finding some comfort in Midnight Notes. Especially "On Africa and self-reproducing automata"

Thanks for the great research!

Join our team! 🤗
Are you a graduate student interested in surveillance studies? We need an enthusiastic bookworm to help us compile an online library of publications on surveillance in the Majority World. Please follow the link for applications. We have a small budget to compensate for the hours.

Our first newsletter is up!
Read about some cool new tools, the false promise of biometrics by @lhreports.bsky.social, automation on the move by @algorithmwatch.bsky.social, listen to a podcast on Afrotopia, learn about India-Isreal AI weapon systems collaboration, & maybe decide to join our team!