Introduction: Discriminatory Design, Liberating Imagination

Chapter Author: Ruha Benjamin

Page author: Allie Diaz

Summary
Benjamin introduces Captivating Technology with the platitude, “Technology captivates” (1). He describes a series of “technocorrections,” both physical (electronic ankle monitors) and theoretical (crime prediction algorithms), that successfully capture our bodies and minds and deepen existing inequalities in our society. Benjamin states that Captivating Technology will examine “how the management, control, and ‘correcting’ of poor and racialized people” prompts us to invest in discriminatory technological practices. Benjamin believes that the prison industrial complex extends further into our society than most people understand and that technology is an active, key player in allowing carcerality to permeate numerous aspects of social life.

Benjamin defines “the new Jim Code” as “innovation that enables social containment while appearing fairer than discriminatory practices of a previous era” (3). He believes that while technological advancements may seem like upgrades, they often magnify existing inequalities and make racist violence more difficult to detect. He quotes Angela Y. Davis’s call for the abolition of our current prison system and the creation of new, reformative institutions in their place. He proposes several questions that the text will ask, including “How are novel technologies deployed in carceral approaches to governing life well beyond the domain of policing?” and “How might technoscience be appropriated and reimagined for more liberatory ends?” (4).

Benjamin suggests taking a hybrid approach of technology studies and critical race studies to determine how social frameworks shape a context that “makes some technologies appear inevitable and others impossible” (4). He defines this approach as discriminatory design and reflects on how social biases are coded using commonplace technologies and tools, such as metered benches and “pay for use” policies. He asserts that Captivating Technology will offer forward-movement by identifying oppressive technologies and pointing to justice-oriented alternatives. Benjamin offers “radio imagination” as a method for ethical engagement with technoscience that depends on listening to the testimonies of the people effected by oppressive technologies.

Benjamin worries that the “rhetoric of human betterment” distorts our understanding of the relationship between technology and society (9). He suggests that a commitment to justice as a methodology has the potential to clarify and redefine the relationship altogether. Benjamin tells readers that by crafting a justice-oriented approach to technoscience, Captivating Technology will rewrite the definition of innovation and question existing claims of techno-utopianism. Lastly, Benjamin calls on readers to “explore the edges of [their] own imagination” and evaluate how the technocorrections installed in their minds have created systems of discriminatory design in their own lives. He believes that we cannot expect to change social structures without confronting similar designs in our own mental structures.

Benjamin concludes the introduction with an overview of the book’s three sections. Part I, “Carceral Techniques from Plantation to Prison,” considers place as a technology and examines the significance of geographical space on a variety of locations, such as plantations, prisons, urban neighborhoods, and “hot spots” of crime. Part II, “Surveillance Systems from Facebook to Fast Fashion,” explores the morality and ethics of surveillance as it relates to “the social good” (13). Part III, “Retooling Liberation from Abolitionists to Afrofuturists,” reimagines technoscience as a method for liberation. The book’s final two chapters contain interviews with professors that inspire readers to consider their roles as technoscientific scholars in their families, communities, and institutions. Ultimately, Benjamin hopes that the reader will “imagine and craft the worlds [they] cannot live without, just as [they] dismantle the ones we cannot live within” (14).

Connection to other readings
Benjamin references and quotes Angela Y. Davis’s Are Prisons Obsolete? throughout the introduction of Captivating Technology. He riffs on Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow in his coining of the phrase “the new Jim Code.” He also references two of his own previous works, Race After Technology and “Innovating Inequity: If Race Is a Technology, Postracialism Is the Genius Bar.”

Connection to other chapters
Obviously, the introduction connects to all of the chapters. It provides an overview of the books three sections with brief descriptions of the chapters, as well.