Seminar Series

Register here to join us for an ITS virtual talk "The politics of memory: Language technologies and decolonization in South Africa" with Dr. Yousif Hassan (University of Michigan) on February 26, 2026 from 12:00 pm till 1:30 pm.

Yousif Hassan is an assistant professor at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and School of Information. His research focuses on the social, economic, and political implications of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, natural language processing, blockchain among other technologies with a particular emphasis on technoscientific innovation, development, and the digital economy. Hassan’s interest is at the intersection of social justice and technology and innovation policy. His most recent work investigates the development of AI and its innovation ecosystem across multiple African countries focusing on AI, data governance, the data economy, and the sociotechnical knowledge production and innovation practices of governments, scientists, and the tech industry.

Abstract:
The rapid and widespread adoption of natural language processing (NLP) and large language models (LLMs) technologies raise pressing concerns regarding their ethical and responsible integration into society, yet their political and social implications in the Global South remain under explored. Drawing on decolonial perspectives from Africa, this talk examines NLP and LLMs for Indigenous and local languages in South Africa, not merely as computational tools but as sociotechnical artefacts embedded in politics and power. I argue that NLP and LLMs function as technologies of both dis-memberment and re-memberment of the African subjects of their memory of being. While these technologies may hold emancipatory potential for local communities, they are simultaneously shaped by global hierarchies of knowledge, colonial history of linguicide and epistemicide, and priorities of global institutions and big tech.

This is in collaboration with The Harriet Tubman Institute.