Provoking question: What does it mean to be connected? How and where are electronic components sourced?
Digital technologies like Zoom and FaceTime have allowed for people to connect with loved ones across continents (see for example, Valerie Francisco-Manchavez’s The Labor of Care Filipina Migrants and Transnational Families in the Digital Age) and increasingly, people have turned to “the cloud” to store memories in the form of videos and photos. Critiques of technology have also focused on digital surveillance, biased algorithms, and how globalized technology has exacerbated racialized labor systems. Although these conversations are important and ongoing, such realities and discourses can often obscure the very material, environmental impacts that digital technologies produce. The promises of efficiency and connection, even in relation to food production, must be increasingly weighed against the structural challenges and impacts of exploited and racialized labor and extractivism.
Food
Spirituality
Land