The goal of this symposium is to radically reimagine the future of Internet governance (IG) as a field of study through an anti-colonial lens. This proposal arises from the urgent recognition that IG, both as a practice and as a discipline, has historically been shaped by Western frameworks that marginalize other forms of knowledge and existence, weakening the agency of historically silenced communities and their epistemologies. As IG evolves alongside rapid technological transformations, it becomes essential to challenge and dismantle its colonial, racial, and patriarchal legacies.
We ask: How can IG engage in deeper dialogues with critical perspectives that decenter Western hegemony, value the knowledge and experiences of the Global South, and amplify the voices of those who have been historically rendered invisible, such as marginalized communities, nonhuman entities, and alternative technopolitical imaginaries? To expand IG’s epistemic boundaries, we call for approaches grounded in anticolonial, antiracist, antifascist, deep ecological, and long-durée historical perspectives. These critical frameworks have been systematically resisted in IG scholarship, especially in empirical investigations of its governance mechanisms. The event will feature researchers from IG and intersectional disciplines dedicated to building a critical and anti-colonial shift in Internet Governance, intervening in the power structures that shape digital infrastructures and their futures.
