Speaker Interview: Esra Ozkan

Esra is Table Co-Director, Justice, Equity and Technology Project, Dept. of Media and Communications at The London School of Economics and Political Science. She will be speaking at the Reclaiming Sovereignty Panel on the first day of the conference.

🪩 DISCO:

What does digital sovereignty mean to you? How do you (try to) live a digitally sovereign life?

🎤 Esra Ozkan:

To me – like all the other forms of sovereignty – it means power, autonomy and self-determination for the communities we are part of. It entails a critical inquiry about and capacity to influence over which digital tools are to be developed and used for which life affirming purposes and at which scale. I’m not sure if I’m making a specific effort in order to live a digitally sovereign life. I try to live in line with the principles of justice and freedom in all areas of life. Reflecting on and discussing the impacts of digital technologies, joining efforts of organising around the harms and holding space for building relationships across organised communities are some of the things I do.

🪩 DISCO:

As we witness rapid technological breakthroughs in the field of AI, which digital rights do you consider the most endangered?

🎤 Esra Ozkan:

We need to be aware that these technological breakthroughs are neither inevitable nor progressive. They are a result of political choices made by those who are generating power and money by developing and promoting technologies as a continuation of histories of oppression. We can make different choices. Most blatant uses of tech perpetuating systemic injustice are in the areas of policing and governance of migration. Police tech such as biometric surveillance, police databases, border surveillance tech are serving to further criminalise racialised communities in order to keep the current social order.

🪩 DISCO:

What other threats to digital rights are you worried about? Do you have any insights on how we can address them as a society?

🎤 Esra Ozkan:

I’m more concerned about the ways in which technology is limiting our imagination of a world that we want to live in. We need to identify how tech keeps racial capitalism intact and seek social transformation accordingly. We need to keep on insisting on alternative ways of being, living, organising, relating to each other as well as defining the role of technology in a liberated society. When shifting power is our vision, we can anchor our daily work in one of the stepping stones in that direction. We can co-create tangible alternatives rooted in the material realities of the here-and-now. Whether it is pushing for redistribution of resources and reparations towards historically marginalised communities or building institutions outside the current status quo modelling our principles or making public money available for building technologies that support well-being free from exploitation, dispossession and violence; all the roles we play in the movement ecosystem matter.

🪩 DISCO:

How can events such as DISCO Slovenia 2023 help foster international collaborations and partnerships in promoting digital sovereignty and protecting civil liberties in the interconnected world?

🎤 Esra Ozkan:

Getting-to-know people doing similar or complementary work and learning from different perspectives and contexts are always a great source of inspiration for future collaborations. It also helps us sharpen our analysis supporting our day-to-day engagement.

🪩 DISCO:

What obstacles do you consider most critical in our efforts to depatriarchalise and decolonise technology? Can you think of examples of subversive uses of technology that can help us reshape it?

🎤 Esra Ozkan:

Our efforts of decolonising and depatriarchalising technology work must be rooted in the broader decolonial and feminist struggles. For me, learning from histories of liberation is key. Any effort of decolonising tech that builds on the wealth of knowledge produced by generations of decolonial organising can help us forward. One of the obstacles here is insisting on centering technological developments as solutions to social issues. Technology has been serving the powerful and deepening ongoing crisis such as climate change, pandemic, lack of access to social services, authoritarianism and so on. We should support ideas and initiatives based on solidarity and mutual aid, shifting power away from the capital and the state. There are great examples of subversive uses such as reverse engineering footage of police brutality that helped reveal the truth or data visualisations mapping stop and searches within the work of watching the watchers, adopting encryption, or simply the acts of refusal in the face of violent technologies.

🪩 DISCO:

What advice would you give to individuals on how to responsibly navigate the online environment in regard to their privacy and digital rights? Are there any specific tools that you would recommend?

🎤 Esra Ozkan:

Less is more :) and leave your somephone at home if you are going to a protest.

🪩 DISCO:

Can you recommend a book that we should all read before the conference, a podcast that we should subscribe to and/or a website that we should bookmark?

🎤 Esra Ozkan:

Two books: Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness by Simone Browne and Resisting AI: An Anti-fascist Approach to Artificial Intelligence by Dan MacQuillan.

🪩 DISCO:

Which disco tune should we definitely add to the opening party playlist?

🎤 Esra Ozkan:

Fight the Power by Public Enemy.