Is the Digital Truly Global? Inequality, Extraction, and Power In Turbulent Times

Digital technologies are often celebrated as creating a borderless and globally connected world. The rapidly evolving digital landscape and advancements in information and communication technologies are portrayed as leveling global power structures with respect to knowledge and access. Yet the promise of a universal digital future obscures persistent inequalities in the production, circulation, and ownership of digital infrastructures, knowledge, and value. This panel invites critical sociological engagement with the question: Is the digital truly global? It aims to examine how historical North-South asymmetries are reproduced through contemporary digital processes. The thrust of this inquiry is to examine whether the ‘digital’ largely marketed as a democratising force within global and local contexts, conceals unequal relations of production, ownership and consumption. We welcome contributions that explore themes such as the global division of digital labour (including platform work, content moderation, data annotation etc.); epistemic inequalities in digital knowledge production and research; and variations in digital cultures and online publics across different social and geographical contexts. The panel will further investigate emerging forms of extraction concentrated in the Global South (data mining centres, AI infrastructure, and e-waste processing), while economic accumulation and technological control and ownership remain concentrated in the Global North. Together, these discussions will try to interrogate whether digital globalization represents inclusion, or a reconfiguration of older structures of dependency and unequal exchange. Overall, we try to explore if existing sociological theories and perspectives can be used to understand such processes, or does the digital require its own theoretical frameworks.