Digital Panopticon, Big Data, and AI: Cybercolonialism and Networks of Surveillance Technologies in Pakistani Anglophone Fiction

The intersection of colonialism and technology is not a new phenomenon, but in the twenty-first century, the Big DataBig Data, AIAI, and digitization of surveillance have given rise to what scholars call ‘cybercolonialism’. This chapter critically examines selected Pakistani Anglophone novels to unpack the ethical, political, and moral implications of digital surveillance and data collection in the Global South. By drawing upon Pinar Tuzcu’s theorization of ‘cybercolonialism’, the Foucauldian term ‘biopoliticsbiopolitics’, and Katherine HaylesHayles’ nuanced understanding of the ‘posthumanposthuman subjectivitysubjectivity’, I conduct textual analysis of Kamila ShamsieKamila Shamsie’s Home FireShamsieHome Fire and Mohsin HamidHamid’s Exit WestHamidExit West and How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising AsiaHamidHow to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia to unpack the diffractive agency of digital apparatuses in controlling and managing cyberspaces and the reconfiguration of human bodiesbodies into data points. DigitalDigital governmentality has taken precedence and Foucauldian biopolitics has transformed itself into ‘cyberpoliticscyberpolitics’. Due to the unprecedented rise in users of digital devices and cyberactivity, cyberspace has emerged as a colossal digital panopticon where each and every individual is under technological surveillance and is a critical resource for politically, culturally, and economically sensitive information. This chapter demonstrates that in the aftermath of a rise in Big Data collection trends, the human ‘self’ is being reconstituted as data points and their digital media use is being politically controlled, manipulated and exploited by the domestic and globalglobal power structures.