Bot (Carien Smith) as postcolonial resistance against digital neocolonial power

Abstract

This paper examines Bot, a short story collection by Carien Smith, as a form of postcolonial resistance against digital neocolonial power. Drawing on postcolonial theory, as well as recent studies on data colonialism, technocolonisation and artificial intelligence, it demonstrates how Smith’s speculative dystopian fiction rearticulates colonial systems of control, hierarchy and exclusion. The study argues that AI and digital infrastructure function as new languages of power in which algorithms and data systems exercise control in ways similar to historical colonial administrations. In Bot this power is sybolised through technologies that normalise dehumanisation, exploitation, the erasure of identity, gendered coloniality, and ecological destruction. Bot serves not only as a warning about the consequences of uncontrolled technological development, but also challenges the power politics of the digital age and exposes the potential human cost of technological advancement.