Computing in Latin America: Big Data, Modernization, and the Politics of Connection

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

The relationship between computing and modernization, as Latin American computing history shows, has inescapable geopolitical conditions. Due to the region’s status as economically peripheral, yet intertwined with the world’s major computational and military power, the study of computing in Latin America demonstrates both how a computational periphery refers back to its “center,” as much as how it develops or adopts its own computational traditions. Between technological innovation amid infrastructural divestment, the use of computational methods for contesting state violence and the weaponization of big data, and the intertwining of multinational tech capital and state enterprise, the study of computing and modernization across Latin America is as much a history of the false promises of modernization as it is one of resisting various forms of marginalization. With a focus on Mexico, Brazil, and Cuba, this panel examines the history of big data along with present contestations over the differentials in impact faced by those who bear its biggest burden.

Sub Track

• Social Analysis and Big Data

Session Organizer

• Colette Perold, New York University

Chair

• Colette Perold, New York University

Discussant

• David Nemer

Individual Presentations

• Americanizing the Global Brand: IBM’s Welfare Capitalism in Authoritarian Brazil - Colette Perold, New York University

• "Wi-Fi en la esquina"—Interface Labor and the Politics of Connection in Cuban Wi-Fi Parks - Sam P Kellogg, New York University

• Missing Memories: The Role of Computing Technology in the Ayotzinapa Case - Rodrigo Ferreira

• Uma geração de brasileiros perfeitos: ordem e modernização autoritária através das propagandas de Informática na Ditadura Civil-Militar brasileira (1970-1980) - Marcelo Vianna, Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia do Rio Grande do Sul (IFRS) e Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos (UNISINOS)