Abstract The paper investigates the narratives disseminated in the national AI strategy of Japan from a comparative perspective. Converging with other technologically advanced nations, Japanese AI strategy disseminates a deterministic and techno-solutionist view of AI as a disruptive and powerful technology. AI is hailed as a redeemer to face the compounded crises of economy, ecology, and demography, thereby making national survival possible. Besides these elements of international convergence, the paper further identifies two distinct imaginaries of AI in Japan: First, a utopian vision of Japan as a world-leading “super-smart frontrunner” in AI that shall first realize the stage of “Society 5.0” - an ideal society in which the physical space and cyberspace are converted into one. Second, a narrative of human-centeredness, diversity, well-being, and sustainability that elicits consent. Whereas the first imaginary caters to nationalist sentiments and alludes to conservative discourses of Japaneseness (Nihonjinron), the latter hints at a progressive but neo-liberal narrative of connectedness, legitimacy and self-governance. However, both elements conceal the risks and limitations of AI development for Japan and seek to reconfigure Japan into an “AI-driven society” instead of adapting AI to the needs of the Japanese population.
Abstract In this article we examine Francophone and Anglophone examples of Afrofuturist texts with regard to their representation of technology beyond the Western imaginary. We argue that the novel Ceux qui sortent dans la nuit (2013) by Cameroonian writer Mutt-Lon and the short story “A Dream of Electric Mothers” by Nigerian writer Wole Talabi draw on specific Afrofuturist models of imagining technology in blurring the boundaries between magic or dreams and technology. In doing so, these texts not only redefine the critical concept of Afrofuturism beyond the dominant US context. They also push the boundaries of much broader concepts like the human, rationality, science and technology and, thus, raise much farther reaching questions. Our arguments draw on the theoretical context of Achille Mbembe’s exploration of Afrofuturism and its implications for the concept of the human in his 2014 article “Afrofuturisme et devenir-nègre du monde”, in which he suggests that Afrofuturism possesses the critical potential to push beyond the concept of Enlightenment humanism which relies on the Othering of Black people and to imagine futures otherwise. We argue that the texts and films we explore in this article are examples of such boundary-crossings which reimagine techno-futures from an Afrofuturist perspective.
Abstract In the United States, high-speed internet connectivity is ubiquitous in many places yet markedly absent in others. In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, renewed federal efforts toward universal broadband have mobilized billions of dollars aimed at closing infrastructural gaps. We bring together the cases of Detroit, Michigan and a Northern Michigan Tribe (NMT) - two communities where broadband has not yet fully arrived - to consider how ambitions for connectivity are articulated and realized in practice. Efforts to achieve more equitable distribution of the internet’s benefits cannot be meaningfully disengaged from questions of power and control over the internet as both a discursive and material architecture. Adopting a decolonizing stance, this paper situates the contemporary experiences of these two differently marginalized communities within longer histories of settler colonialism and dispossession. Internet futuring and internet management operate as a dialectical analytic, attuned to the ways that power arrangements are unsettled through practices of futuring and stabilized through managerial mechanisms. The two communities we follow in this paper are each making connectivity efforts from their positions at the margins of robust, affordable broadband. In Detroit, we trace the Hope Village plan for an open access, municipally owned fibre network, a highly anticipated project that stalled before it began. Further north, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, we follow NMT’s path to build a fibre network to serve Tribal members across the region, whilst navigating multiple setbacks and policy constraints. Across both sites, we observe internet management operating through mechanisms of hypervisibility, conditional recognition, and temporality that structure the field of possibility for connectivity. Internet futuring emerges as a localized, relational, and iterative practice of self-determination, producing distinct connectivity demands and outcomes.
Abstract Science fiction (SF) films reflect and shape sociotechnological realities as well as associated narratives and imaginaries. As such, they spark societal debates about the design of technological futures. Yet, the cinematic discourse on emerging technologies is heavily dominated by Western perspectives, while little is known about how these technologies are represented in SF films from the Souths. The present study addresses this gap by analysing a sample of ten Latin American (LatAm) films dealing with artificial intelligence (AI) - a key emerging technology of recent times - using qualitative film analysis methods and focusing on key representations and narrative motifs. These are interpreted in light of previous research on AI narratives and representations as well as region-specific contexts and debates. The analysis is further supported by findings from a previous study based on ten in-depth interviews with the directors of these films. The analysis reveals that AI in LatAm films is portrayed in markedly different ways from Western SF, with a focus on sociotechnological issues such as the unequal, colonial power structures underpinning AI, and a preference for depictions of ‘weak AI’ over ‘strong AI’. Consistent with this, AI is rarely portrayed as anthropomorphic, human-like, or agentic, instead serving as a tool of oppression wielded by authoritarian governments or tech companies. However, most of the films also present strategies of empowerment and resistance to these threats, linking to Latin America’s long tradition of creative and intellectual opposition to imported Western worldviews, as well as its engagement in debates on the decolonization of technology. The findings emphasise the films’ potential to stimulate decolonial practices of resistance - e.g., by subverting rather than reproducing Western SF narratives - and to foster meaningful debates on AI by centring human empowerment in the face of AI-related hazards instead of fuelling fears of AI extinguishing humanity.
Abstract The term “cyborg” commonly refers to a technically augmented organism, a physical (human) body plus devices changing its natural capacities, interconnected in a way that allows regarding the combination as a new entity. However, bodies are much more stubborn than minds, so today’s digital cyborgs - us - instead of the laser eyes, have minds augmented with smartphones, social media, and AI. If media is the message, it shapes the sender’s and receiver’s cognitive structures and changes forms of social connection between them, bringing people closer to technology despite their efforts to approach one another. To identify vectors of these changes, the author analyses 164 autoethnographic essays of Ukrainian students written in 2019-2023 on communication differences and similarities between them and their older family members. The informants mostly regard their parents and grandparents as possessing a stronger information focus and memory, but at the same time, somewhat helpless when dealing with gadgets and sticking to “old” forms of content, whereas the informants themselves are reported to be constantly online and competent at using new media. The early immersion in media content determines conservative practices of its further consumption, even in newer media. Age, occupation, and life stage predict content consumption and production specifics. It is shown how the constant immersion in the twofold space of the online-offline experiences of today impacts society in the future, leading to the gradual redefinition of concepts of presence, attention, knowledge, time, space, self, and even being.
Abstract From digitalized lifestyles to AI-generated digital artworks - technology and popular culture have been intertwined for decades, jointly shaping social imaginaries of techno-futures. Although this interplay has been widely acknowledged, there remains a need for more global, inclusive, and context-sensitive approaches to techno-futures - especially in times of increasing geopolitical turbulence and nationalist sentiments. This paper attempts to answer the question of how Chinese techno-futures are reflected, co-produced, and negotiated through various popular and official (online) discourses on digitalized lifestyles and aesthetics. Additionally, it explores how these discourses interweave traditional and futuristic aspects to create a culturally specific form of Sinofuturism, and ask whether such imaginaries move beyond the shadow of techno-orientalism. Methodologically, the study combines hashtag ethnography with visual discourse analysis to examine four case studies: Douyin short-video series themed around Chinese techno-futures, the science-fiction blockbuster series The Wandering Earth, the digital artwork series China 2098, and viral AI-generated official propaganda videos on Chinese video/social media platform Bilibili. Across these cases, Sinofuturist discourses on Chinese techno-futures reflect an infrastructure-centered and technological fetishism/optimism, portraying China’s digital/high-tech innovation and large-scale infrastructure projects as transformative forces that improve everyday life, promote ecological harmony, and avert dystopian outcomes under the guidance of Chinese humanist and socialist ideals and aesthetics. Conceptually, this paper argues that such Sinofuturist imaginaries often remain marked by internalized techno-orientalism, positioning both China and “the West” within reconfigured orientalist hierarchies. This dynamic mirrors the (self-)othering and (self-)spectacularization of Chinese technology and its temporality, a reflexive “denial of coevalness” (De Seta 2020). More broadly, the findings suggest that popular cultural techno-futures in the Global South are not inherently oppositional or emancipatory, but may coexist and intertwine with dominant political and ideological structures even as they seek to contest them.
Abstract Since 2012, conflicts accompanied by escalating violence have spread across the Sahel region, making it one of the most violent areas in the world. It is perhaps no coincidence that 2012 also marks the period when social media began to gain significant traction in the Sahel. In this paper we explore how conflict narratives are shaped on Malian Twitter. Mali is one of the core areas of Sahelian conflicts. The paper uses a dataset of the Malian Twittersphere that was published in 2023. The approach combines computational methods (NLP) and ethnographic analysis. This method helps to read the big data set in a specific context and a socio-politically informed manner. The conclusions show that Twitter has a tendentious conflict discourse, that centers on (inter)national politics and generally supports the government. It is grounded in the real conflict events on the ground, but also relates to international discussions.
Abstract Technology with its allure to extend, transform or even overcome the human, opens the gate to transcendental fictions and fantasies that paint vast futures. While Western and heroic readings proclaim an understanding of technology as social transformation, this article explores future imaginaries from different historical and geographical contexts. The paper offers a critical hermeneutical framework for various cultural case studies that unfold in their response to the modernist legacies of progress, colonialism and consumerism. It aims to decenter the discussion on socio-technical futures and to ask for the role popular culture, aesthetics and media play in their (re)production. Beyond hopeful imaginaries, the article points to perspectives from places around the world that mediate between responses of denial or promotion, opposition or attraction, and resistance or adoption to techno-solutionist progress narratives. These perspectives show that the re-politicization of the present as a gateway to the future does not permit technology to be imbued with an aura of neutrality, innocence and purity, but instead embeds it in the messy questions of power and contested meaning-making.
Abstract This article proposes a methodological framework - the Platform Futures Framework - with the purpose of revealing and analyzing the plural techno-futures embedded in digital platform adoption by marginalized users in the Global South. Dominant platform theories, largely developed in the Global North, often overlook the socio-economic, infrastructural, and cultural specificities of Southern contexts, as well as the competing futures imagined by state actors, corporate stakeholders, and local communities. This framework addresses these gaps through a localized, multisided analysis that evaluates platforms as both technical infrastructures and sites of future-making. Drawing on qualitative research with India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI), it builds on and extends approaches such as Duncombe’s livelihood framework by integrating a critical assessment of mediation, infrastructural dependencies, and governance practices. Organized around four analytical pillars - Vision (identifying whose futures are imagined and institutionalized), Circumstantial Assessment (mapping contextual factors, user vulnerabilities, and infrastructures that shape future trajectories), Synthesis (tracing where hegemonic and grassroots futures intersect or diverge), and Actions (formulating strategies for more inclusive, multi-futural platform governance) - the framework situates platform evaluation within broader cultural and political economies of technology. By integrating insights from political economy, platform studies, and development research, it provides policymakers, researchers, and platform designers with a futures-oriented toolkit for understanding and engaging with the diverse, often contested techno-futures of the Global South.
