GloTech Lab is a creative experiment at building community among scholars, policymakers and activists who practice globally-minded and community-driven research about our tech-mediated public sphere.
GloTech Lab is a creative experiment at building community among scholars, policymakers and activists who practice globally-minded and community-driven research about our tech-mediated public sphere.
The lab was founded in 2023 by five faculty members in the Department of Communication at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.
Although coming from different disciplinary backgrounds and using different methodological approaches, our collective body of work centralizes inter- and transnational perspectives on technology through a critical lens. Our experience and research from various regions – China, Ghana, the Philippines, Turkey, Venezuela – are not peripheral or dystopic case studies for European or American policies. Rather, we know them to be central to producing knowledge that serves a global majority and the broader quest for a just world for all.
Our tagline “Beyond Borders, Bits, and Biases” correspond to key principles of transnationalism, human-centeredness, and social justice we apply to our research and community-building.
Our diverse projects, organized into 3 research areas, draw from diverse social justice-oriented traditions including participatory action research and decolonial frameworks that confront head-on the structural oppressions in technological systems as well as institutions of knowledge production.Each year, we have a themed creative container that gives focus to our lab activities, from reading groups to seminars to international exchanges and fellowships.
The theme for our launch in 2023 was “Tech and Democracy in the Global Majority”. Videos from our launch event are here
Our Partners
GloTech Lab's research has been supported by
GloTech’s launch was supported by the UMass Large-Scale Integrative Research Grant (LIRA) Award.