Decolonizing technology assessment: Towards a radical transformation of the modern world

Abstract

This research article makes a conceptual contribution to decolonizing technology assessment (TA) by highlighting the persistence of colonial relations, not only between nations but also between different ways of knowing and being. Beyond the modern, these ways are often categorized as Indigenous, traditional, vernacular, artisanal and local. Against many such ways, the modern world has enacted colonial relations of superiority and supremacy, control and domination, as well as extraction and appropriation. To help transform these globally extensive relations, we call to decolonize TA through radical care for the social-material bases of colonially marginalized ways of being and knowing. This means that TA should enable refusals of modern innovations if they are likely to damage those social-material bases. Furthermore, radical care in TA means practicing solidarity with decolonial movements that directly confront entrenched colonial relations behind modern concentrations of power and privilege. We support our arguments with brief examples from agriculture.