Technofascism, feminism and democracy

The aim of the research project is to build an international learning community and through a one-year course explore the growing connections between digital technologies, artificial intelligence, big tech companies, and the global emergence of authoritarian regimes from a feminist perspective.

In recent years, scholars have increasingly pointed out the ways in which large technology firms, social media platforms and AI have fueled democratic backsliding, and provided the data infrastructure and informatic platforms for war, violence and ethnic cleansing around the world. Various names have been proposed for the conjuncture of Big Tech and the rise of authoritarian regimes: technocapitalism, technofeudalism, digital authoritarianism, technofascism, and others.

It is this last term — technofascism — that this learning community will explore through a feminist lens, involving questions like:

1. How are contemporary authoritarian regimes mobilizing technology, AI, and data to erode democratic norms and institutions and undergird state violence against groups targeted for their gender, race, class or ethnic identity?
2. Is technofascisman apt term to describe this phenomenon? What are the parallels to and divergences from historic and contemporary fascisms, especially when considering gender, race, colonial, and labor dynamics?
3. What role do the financial incentives and patriarchal ideologies of technology firms, particularly “Big Tech” firms based in Silicon Valley, play in enabling authoritarian collaboration and capture? How does this entanglement take form in different parts of the world (e.g., places in the Global South being used as laboratories for new technologies in connection with authoritarian regimes)?
4. How are feminist activists, grassroots movements and civil society organizations defending democracy, using tech to care for each other, and proposing alternative technological futures?

Through an online learning community with readings, guest lectures, and discussions, the project brings together participants from different countries and backgrounds to examine these questions and learn from one another.

The project is led by:

• Catherine D'Ignazio, MIT, Grant Recipient
• Alessandra Jungs de Almeida, Swedish Defence University
• Becca Lewis, MIT
• Erik Sandelin, MIT

The project is supported by:

• MIT Center for International Studies
• The Swedish Defence University's Centre for Gender, Peace and Security
• MIT Data + Feminism Lab
• MIT OpenCourseWare

Read more about the project