‘South Fabricated’: Computing Stories of Global South Insecurity

‘Fabricado no Sul’: Histórias de computação sobre a insegurança da GS

Abstract

Sci-fi tales of computing technologies have been carriers of an unabashed anxiety vis-à-vis the present and the future of politics. In International Relations, these tales split in two: either technology divides developed from developing, while also forging paths to development; or it helps contain unruly bodies–human’s, nature’s, otherwise. Drawing on the case of activist app Fogo Cruzado, this article proposes to shift the narrative towards the different political pathways that can be fabricated through an engagement with existing digital infrastructures. In re-enacting the trajectory of a bullet from a gun chamber to a smartphone notification, I show how the making of situated digital artifacts can illuminate how we think about Global South politics and disrupt two assumptions structured through tales of control and domination: one, that digital infrastructures are monolithic, seamless, and consistent; and two, that tales of technological innovation need to happen in the North.

Keywords
SF; apps; Global South; digital technologies; security politics