Reading List - Surveillance Technology as a Weapon

We are pleased to have hosted the 19th session of our Political Economy Teach-In Series, Surveillance Technology as a Weapon”, on 29 January with Islam al Khatib.

Islam al Khatib is a Palestinian researcher born and raised in Lebanon. She currently works as the Knowledge Building Co-Strategist at Noor and is pursuing a PhD exploring surveillance as a methodology in academia and anti-colonial knowledge production at LSE. Her research focuses on surveillance, digital fascism, and the geopolitics of AI. Her recent work includes Beyond Techwashing: The UAE’s AI Industrial Policy as a Security Regime, published with the AI Now Institute.

All our sessions are recorded and you can access the previous ones on our website. The videos are in the original version, though we will be working to provide translated transcripts in Arabic, English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese to reach a wider audience.

Explore below a curated selection of resources authored by Global South feminists. For a more comprehensive collection on this and other feminist topics, visit the South Feminist Knowledge Hub.

We welcome your contributions! If you know of other resources that should be included in this reading list, please submit them via this form or email us at knowledgehub@southfeministfutures.org.

Resources by Islam al Khatib [English]

Beyond Techwashing: The UAE’s AI Industrial Policy as a Security Regime

“Rather than narrate AI as a tool or factor influencing the economy, the idea of an “AI economy” captures a self-fulfilling vision of AI shaping an economy in which it occupies a central, all-encompassing role. As Mckenzie Wark writes in Capital is Dead, 2 there is a difference “between ‘information’ as a force of production and information as a dominant force of production.” Similarly, AI is no longer simply a market to monopolize, but rather a monopoly that will marketize other sectors.“

The UAE’s mission to Mars is a terrifying manifestation of the Technocene

“The fact that the UAE is leading in the tech sector should terrify us; there are serious allegations of Emirati governmental interference with privacy and digital rights, not only in the Gulf, but across the Middle East and North Africa. People are paying the price for technological advancement in different and cruel ways. From using Israeli spyware as a tool to silence dissent, to investing in the war on Yemen and arming dictators, Emirati structures of oppression are symptoms of a much more complex systemic issue.”

A New AI Lexicon: DISSENT

Becoming Monsters: What happens when the witness becomes the defendant?