Laboring in Electronic and Digital Waste Infrastructures: Colonial Temporalities of Violence in Asia

Evelyn Wan*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

This article studies artworks that highlight and critique networks of electronic waste and digital waste in digital media. Digital waste refers to images of pornographic, abusive, or violent nature on platforms like YouTube and Facebook that are “cleaned” by content moderators. Global signal traffic demands labor that is particularly dependent on particular colored bodies who bear the brunt of toxic pollution from e-waste disposal and posttraumatic stress due to durational exposure to graphic violence. From a temporal perspective, this analysis looks at media infrastructure through a postcolonial lens to study the temporal violence and necropolitics of digital culture.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)2631-2651
Number of pages21
JournalInternational Journal of Communication
Volume15
Publication statusPublished - 2021

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021. (Evelyn Wan). Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives (by-nc-nd). Available at http://ijoc.org.

Keywords

  • colonial temporality
  • content moderation
  • digital infrastructure
  • necropolitics
  • waste

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