Data Colonialism

A critical framework, advanced by Couldry and Mejias (2019) and others, that describes how contemporary data extraction practices replicate historical patterns of colonialism — appropriating resources (here, data and attention) from communities, particularly in the Global South, without equitable benefit, agency, or consent. In AI and accessibility research, data colonialism critiques surface when datasets are collected from marginalized groups to train systems those groups rarely shape or profit from, when infrastructural and language choices exclude local contributors, or when Western privacy and consent norms are imposed on culturally different contexts.