Seminario Politics of Digitization. A Research Path

In this presentation, I will illustrate the main analyses and hypotheses that shaped personal and collective research on the forms of digitization. Indeed, my research approach combines activism and academy, individual paths within a collective journey, especially with the Into the Black Box research group.

Stimulated by the workers’ struggles in logistics that occurred in the Po Valley around 2012, Into the Black Box developed an approach based on a logistical gaze that focusses on flows – and disruptions – more than on places and identities. This approach has been than applied to analyse the evolution and consolidation of digital technologies in our society.

Initially, I focused on labour transformations, inquiring the development of platform capitalism in urban spaces, also thanks to the participation to the Horizon 2020 project PLUS. Once the process of digitization of production has reached an irreversible peak, we assumed this needed an update in the research towards the forms these transformations mirrored in political institutionalization. This led to the formulation of the Horizon Europe project INCA on Big Tech politics and to the organization of an inquiry on local impact of Amazon expansion.

Nowadays, we are assisting to a growing tension around digitization, especially for AI dominance, due mainly to geopolitical tensions. My hypotheses are that we are witnessing a process of militarization of digital technologies, combined with forms of authoritarianism. My goal is to develop such hypotheses into more specific project proposals.