Subjugating Other Cultural Narratives in the Construction of Immersive Environments

Abstract

This Paper feeds into the current transcultural debate surrounding tensions between the construction of immersive technologies within westernised paradigms. In the construction of immersive spaces, tech companies have unconsciously subjugated other cultural frameworks and perspectives. Safiya Umoja Noble’s term ‘technological redlining’ succinctly articulate this subjugation in her book ‘Algorithms of Oppression’ where she says ‘The power of algorithms in the age of neoliberalism and the ways those digital decisions reinforce oppressive social relationships and enact new modes of racial profiling, which I have termed technological redlining. By making visible the ways that capital, race, and gender are factors in creating unequal conditions, I am bringing light to various forms of technological redlining that are on the rise’. (Noble 2018: 01) These assumptions are systematic of what Jean-Paul Sartre referred to in the last century as Neocolonialism (Sartre 2001: 2). Political systems intentionally subjugating other cultural narratives, in order to impose colonial paradigms concerning social activity. These are still the dominant perspectives, still controlling global narratives. ‘Neocolonialism can be described as the subtle propagation of socio-economic and political activity by former colonial rulers aimed at reinforcing capitalism, neo-liberal globalization’. (Taiwo; Accessed 02/05/19) Umoja Noble highlights a key challenge to address this balance, which is in the construction of any digitised decision-making platform, the key point is to understand that all initial mathematical formulations that drive automated decision-making are made by human beings who exist in a specific socio-cultural context.

Keywords

• transcultural
• immersive
• paradigms
• algorithms
• neocolonialism
• neo-liberalism