From Pessimism To Promise: Lessons from the Global South on Designing Inclusive Tech

by Payal Arora

English 240 pages 2 editions

When it comes to technology, mainstream headlines are bleak: Algorithms control and oppress. AI will destroy democracy and our social fabric, and possibly even drive us to extinction. While these concerns are legitimate, we need to equally account for the fact that technology affords young people something incredibly valuable: a rare space for self-actualization. In From Pessimism to Promise, award-winning author Payal Arora explains that outside the West, where most of the world’s youth reside, there is a significantly different outlook on technology. In fact, there is a contagion of optimism for all things digital. Drawing on field insights in diverse global contexts such as Brazil, India and Bangladesh, Arora describes what drives Gen Z to embrace new technologies. From Pessimism to Promise discusses the shift to relationally driven approaches to design; how to create ‘algorithms of aspiration’; how to reimagine the digital space for sex, pleasure and care; and what we can learn from feminist digital activists and women’s collectives in the Global South on shared digital provenance and value, as well as indigenous approaches to sustainability, which challenge sacred ideas on degrowth, and the circular economy. Arora also takes heart in the power of numbers, as users from the majority world infuse algorithms with everyday aspirations, pushing for a new digital order. Timely and urgent, From Pessimism to Promise makes a deeply compelling case that it is not naive to be optimistic about our digital future. On the contrary, it is our moral imperative to design with hope.