CC&IS is hosting its 14th annual Discerning Diverse Voices Symposium, which will take place on Wednesday March 1st. The conference is FREE and will be taking place in a hybrid format to encourage broad participation.
The theme this year is Under Observation: The Conditions of “Being Seen”.
We are particularly excited to welcome our keynote speaker, Dr. Melissa Villa-Nicholas from the University of Rhode Island:
Keynote: Data Borders: How Silicon Valley is Building an Industry to “Know” Immigrants
Abstract: This lecture investigates the emerging state of borderland technology that brings all people into an intimate place of surveillance where data resides and defines inclusion and exclusion to citizenship. Detailing the new trend of biologically mapping undocumented people through biotechnologies, Villa-Nicholas shows how Latinx immigrants are the focus and driving force for surveillance and technology design by Silicon Valley’s emerging industry within defense technology manufacturing. A murky network is revealed that gathers data on marginalized communities for purposes of exploitation and control that implicates law enforcement, border patrol, and ICE, but that also pulls in public workers and the public, often without their knowledge or consent. Enriched by interviews of Latinx immigrants living in the borderlands on their daily use of technology, and their caution around surveillance, this work argues that to move beyond a heavily surveilled state that dehumanizes both immigrants and citizens, we must understand how the data is being collected, aggregated, and correlated with artificial intelligence, and push for immigrant and citizen privacy information rights along the border and throughout the United States.
Check out the full program here and visit the conference website here for more information! Register today and join us on March 1st (either in person on online) in support of the excellent research and creative outputs from our C&IS community! We hope to see you there!
