Transgressive Tech

Linnet Taylor is Professor of International Data Governance at the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society (TILT), the Netherlands. Her research focuses on digital data, representation, and democracy, with particular attention to transnational governance issues.Aaron Martin is Assistant Professor of Media Studies and Data Science at the University of Virginia, USA. A social scientist specialising in technology policy and data governance, he studies how regulation can facilitate just, inclusive, and secure digital societies.Siddharth Peter de Souza is Assistant Professor in AI and Society at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies, University of Warwick, UK. His research looks at developments in law and technology from a legal pluralist, data justice, and decolonial perspective. He is the founder of Justice Adda, a law and design social venture which seeks to build legal literacy and awareness in India.Joan López Solano is a PhD researcher at the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society (TILT), the Netherlands. His research analyses the impacts of data-intensive systems on the fundamental rights of vulnerable communities and includes data systems used for social security, migration management, and national identification systems.Ouejdane Sabbah is a PhD researcher in Political and Economic Geography at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Her doctoral research focuses on African digital and connectivity infrastructures, specifically examining the perceptions of state and non-state stakeholders in West Africa regarding big tech–led subsea internet cables.Franklyn Ohai is an associate researcher with the Global Data Justice project at Tilburg University, the Netherlands. He has also conducted research at KU Leuven’s Centre for IT and IP Law, focusing on the legal, ethical, and regulatory aspects of digital, data-driven, and connected technologies.

• List of Abbreviations1. What is a ‘sector transgression’, and why should we care?Linnet Taylor, Aaron Martin, Siddharth Peter de Souza, Joan Lopez-Solano, Ouejdane Sabbah, and Franklyn Ohai.2. Transgression through a Sector — On COVID-19, power and technologyVidushi Marda3. The Crutch of Big Tech: Thinking critically about tech companies' sphere transitions in Malaysia and their implications for national policyAnisha Nadkarni 4. A technology response to a public health emergencyGrace Mutung’u5. COVID-19, Health Tech and Sphere Transgression in EthiopiaKinfe Yilma 6. Technology-led border management in Greece: When the EU funds private vendors, Centaurs and Titans turn from myth to realityEleftherios Chelioudakis 7. Brazil and the case of IncogniaBruno Bioni , Gabriela Vergili , Mariana Rielli , Pedro Saliba 8. The app in the middle: Displacement of the Colombian public health surveillance system by COVID appsJoan López-Solano , Juliana Valdés , Juan Diego Castañeda 9. A Digital Push in Agriculture: Multiple locations, shared patterns and the dynamics of displacementFranklyn Ohai and Siddharth Peter de Souza 10. One Gate Leads to Many Doors, a Case Study of MyGate in IndiaAnushka Mittal 11. Super-apps and the Encroachment of Tech Companies in IndonesiaPaska Darmawan 12. Big Tech and Big Money: Examining Big Tech’s entry into India’s payment sectorAman Nair13. A system error has occurred: Reclaiming the public governance of technologyLinnet TaylorIndex

“Transgressive Tech contributes to the fields of surveillance studies, digital studies, and the study of critical political economy by highlighting how governments around the world respond to moments of acute and urgent crisis through neoliberal logics of privatization. […] The edited collection offers an important, global, and multi-perspective contribution to the ongoing study of the political economic reorganization that took place as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, and a look at how people around the world are continuing to wrestle with new social contracts and the administration of vital resources that they had little to no say in negotiating. In putting these case studies side by side and bringing together activist, governmental, and academic perspectives, the collection successfully shows that this problem is about power and domination. The book concludes with the hope that acknowledging the true nature of the problem can be the beginning of genuine solutions to it.” -- William Kertzman, University of Virginia, USA. Surveillance & Society 24(4): 495-497