“TECHNOLOGY, POWER AND SOCIETY: INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON DIGITAL TRANSFORMATIONS, POWER STRUCTURES AND CONTEMPORARY SOCIAL CHALLENGES”
Digital technologies have ceased to be mere instrumental tools and have become devices that redefine power structures, forms of social organization, and relationships among states, markets, institutions and citizens. Artificial intelligence, the automation of decision-making processes, digital surveillance and the concentration of data in the hands of a few global actors have created a scenario in which understanding the relationship between technology and power is essential for analyzing contemporary society. In this context, it is urgent to open spaces for rigorous, situated reflection that critically examine how these transformations affect the social, political and cultural life of our communities.
The main objective of this symposium is to create a space for interdisciplinary dialogue that allows for the critical and complementary analysis of the relationships between technological development, the exercise of power and social transformation, in order to build frameworks of understanding and proposals that guide a fairer and more democratic use of technology. The symposium is organized around the following thematic axes:
1. Digital governance and algorithmic power: analysis of how algorithms and automated decision systems redistribute power among corporations, states and citizens.
2. Surveillance, data and social control: reflection on the extraction and use of personal data as a mechanism of control and its impact on individual freedoms.
3. Technology and social inequality: examination of digital divides and their relationship to economic, educational and cultural exclusion.
4. Resistances and technological alternatives: experiences of critical appropriation, community technology and alternative models of innovation from civil society.
5. Public policy and technological regulation: comparative analysis of regulatory frameworks aimed at fairer and more transparent technological development.
The target audience includes researchers, university professors, graduate students, public policy officials and representatives of civil society organizations interested in deepening the critical analysis of technology and its relationship to power.
As a result, it is expected to consolidate inter-institutional collaboration networks, generate material for joint publications (book chapters or thematic dossiers), and contribute analytical elements that can inform the design of public policies aimed at a more equitable, transparent technological development centered on social well-being.
