Afro-futurism is necessary for analyzing all other violences/subject positions

Section 4: The digital subject’s emancipation Having outlined the three main characteristics—radical subjectivity, collectivity, and contextuality—the following will look at the broader implications. More specifically, first, how the data subject is emancipated through ‘subjectification’ and second, how we can find universality in the specific and what ‘Blackness’ can mean. 4.1 Emancipation through subjectification What follows from the Afrofuturist data subject is an emancipatory approach to data through subjectification. The word emancipation has been used in multiple ways, for instance to describe the movement for women’s suffrage (Evans, 2013), the US-American Civil Rights movement (Branch & Edwards, 2013), or Marxist theory (Marx, 1843/1994). Yet, at the heart of the matter are power struggles, defined as “the process of giving people social or political freedom and rights” (‘Emancipation’, n.d.).8 What we see today is a digital continuation of the historical objectification that Black people have experienced for centuries. It can be argued that objectification is an inherent part of digital data management and does affect everybody as it “enframes the human subject in a new and different way […] [in] which an entity is recognisable and can be indexed” (Ansorge, 2016, p. 95). Yet, combined with the historic objectification as a denial of humanness, the current digital injustices suggest that the objectification via data sorting has a distinct character for Black people. Countering this doubled objectification requires subjectification, which means de- and re-constructing the data subject, reclaiming it and thereby transforming the ‘object’ into a subject. Afrofuturism emancipates both from a prescribed identity (Gipson, 2019, p. 102) and through the use of time; past, present and future (Eshun, 2003; Avanessian & Moalemi, 2018; Womack, 2013). Significantly, as Strauß (2019) highlights, escaping a prescribed identity poses an arguably more critical but also more challenging task in today’s digitalised world. Furthermore, subjectification does not have to be a process of individualisation but, quite the contrary, focuses on a collectivity that broadens the data subject. “[A]cts of preservation and self-defense are not simply expressions of the negative; they define a practice of differential articulation that refuses to be separated and contained.” (Applegate, 2020, p. 141). Correspondingly, activist groups such as ‘Data 4 Black Lives’ are preserving and giving voice to data subjects through their critical inquiry into whose data is being weaponised by whom. Likewise, as Black German Asa Awad-Bergström remarks, the Afro-census “empowers” (Deutsche Welle, 2020) Black Germany. A section within the Afro-census for instance takes stock of Black Germans “Selbstpositionierungen” (Aikins et al., 2021, p. 244). That is, the self-chosen terminology one identifies with, such as “Black”, “Afro-German”, “Person of Colour” etc. Arguably, both the Afro-census and Data 4 Black Lives are aiming for the production of knowledge that works toward the formation of subjects and subjectivities. Overall, it is an emancipatory approach to the entanglements of technology, race, and the political economy that makes Afrofuturism so powerful in reimagining data protection in ways which take into account its complexity. 4.2 Making the subjective universal? Importantly, another subtext of subjectivity is its deeply personal, and intuitionbased rather than fact-based character. A remaining question is then, what is the, for lack of a better term, universal9 in the extremely culturally specific of Afrofuturism and why is it insightful for data protection in general? In order to counteract the unique digital injustices affecting the data subject, we need to acknowledge the structural problems and intersectional differences. The Afrofuturist data subject is about what is made visible as well as what can be imagined based on the recognition that in the current conceptual models, certain things are invisible. Thus, as Benjamin (2019a, p. 10) remarked, deconstruction of a priori exclusionary categories benefits us all. Or as Dratwa (2017) pointedly framed it in the context of the security-surveillance nexus: “What do we want to secure and surveil? Why and how, and at what price? What do we want to make or keep safe? And who is in the ‘we’? This also traces the early connection between surveillance and citizenship, indeed between empowerment, participation and subjection.” (p. xix). Accordingly, the value of this deliberately subjective approach to the data subject, and data protection more generally, lies in the examination of who the most vulnerable data subjects are because, “[w]hen they enter, we all enter”(Crenshaw, 1989, p. 167). By the same token, ‘Blackness’ as the ultimately subjective aspect of subjectification can point towards the digitally marginalised more generally. But what exactly is ‘Black’ and what does its both intangible and at the same time very undeniable history of oppression stand for? As Steinskog (2018) remarks, in Afrofuturism “‘black’ does not refer to any universal entity, but is an umbrella term for a diversity of different positions all having in common that they are described or describe themselves as ‘black’.” (p. 21). Furthermore, “Sun Ra’s musical teleportation holds out the potential for everyone on Earth to become black. No longer merely a historical identity, blackness becomes a transformative effect of space music, the cultural means of inhabiting a new world. Blacks may be in the best social position to make the most of this opportunity, but Space Is the Place holds it open to others, too, at least theoretically. Astro-black mythology can transport people to a brave new black world.” (Youngquist, 2016, p. 213). Through searching for universality in the specific, Blackness can be the departure point to examine who is marginalised, in other words, identified as ‘Black’ in our society. 10 Painted with a broad brush, this analysis calls for further inquiry into the data subject. The argument brought forward in this article provides several avenues for further investigation. In fact, in many places it deserves more nuance than this scope can provide. A non-exhaustive list is, first with regards to contextuality, a further exploration of the possibility of an anti-racist critique within Helen Nissenbaum’s (2010; 2015) concept of contextual integrity. Particularly, the assessment process of a potential violation of the data subject’s information. This could for instance be an examination of structural disparities within the production, visibility, and evaluation of social norms and knowledge. Second, further research could focus on a more elaborate investigation into the protection of the data subject that does not rely on the subject/object binary. And third, future examinations should also particularly look into what Chude-Sokei (2016) calls “false universalism” (p. 168), that is, the dominance of the African-American context in discussions of Blackness and Afrofuturism. Despite potential similarities (see Chander, 2020), other diaspora and population groups face different challenges and discriminatory digital practices than in the United States. In order to prevent and act on digital injustices, we need a nuanced understanding of distinct cases such as the Afro-census. Indeed, “America possesses no monopoly on either blackness or death. A planetary perspective on black suffering and human subjugation would provide globalisation with a conscience irreducible to national identity or imperial ambition.” (Youngquist, 2016, p. 205). Nonetheless, theories of Blackness and the Afrofuturist data subject can teach us about marginalisation, defiance and empowerment. The value in this exercise thus lies in starting to reimagine and deconstruct the data subject, not in conclusively determining it now.