UDTR Global Rights of Nature Radar

Digital Colonialism, Fossil Capitalism, and Indigenous Dispossession

Identification

Public canonical key

radar:r-1e3314ba8a196fdb0c9dff83478a9bde

Authors

Tyler McCreary · David Hugill

Reported year

2026

Reported language

en

Source type

article

First detected

2026-11-14T02:04:58.163867+00:00

Last metadata observation

2026-11-14T02:04:58.163867+00:00

Last HTTP verification

Not checked

Institutions reported by the source

Florida State University · Carleton University

Reported affiliation countries

CA · US

Documentary abstract — original language

This paper argues that North America’s emerging digital economies are materially and politically grounded in ongoing regimes of settler-colonial extraction. While scholarship on “digital colonialism” has illuminated new forms of data appropriation, corporate concentration, epistemic domination, and frontier discourse, it has often underemphasized the extent to which digital infrastructures remain tethered to fossil capitalism and Indigenous dispossession. We contend that digitization is not post-extractive. Rather, it amplifies extractive relations, relying on energy-intensive infrastructures powered by fossil fuels from Indigenous lands. Focusing on Calgary, a Prairie petropolis that has rebranded itself as a “smart city,” we examine how urban digital transformation is embedded in, and extends, settler-colonial fossil regimes. We develop four interrelated claims: (1) the appropriation of resources from Indigenous lands remains foundational to digital economies; (2) corporate power in both fossil and tech sectors is mutually reinforcing within the political order of the petro-state; (3) the digitization and automation of extraction reconfigure labor geographies, undermining Indigenous employment while distancing work from land-based lifeways; and (4) these dynamics intensify colonial violence, with profound consequences. By situating digital capitalism within the historical and ongoing logics of settler colonialism, the paper reframes debates on digital colonialism in grounded, place-based terms.

Identifiers

OPENALEX

https://openalex.org/W7135217487

DOI

10.1080/10455752.2026.2641640

Documentary context

Documentary family

article

Source-reported types

article

Publishers

Taylor & Francis

Entity mentions are not evidence of legal recognition. Jurisdiction studied is separate from author affiliation country.

Sources

OpenAlex · Record 1

• Document · https://doi.org/10.1080/10455752.2026.2641640

Documentary status

Relevance pending

Library

This identity is not yet included in the Legal Library.