University of the Basque Country
Courses
Aitor Jiménez is a sociologist, lawyer and activist. Since 2024, he has been a Ramon y Cajal Researcher at the University of the Basque Country where he leads two lines of research in which he investigates, from a critical, Marxist and decolonial approach, the social and environmental impacts linked to the emergence of digital technologies.
The first line of research investigates, from a socio-legal approach, the ideological, socio-political and environmental contradictions raised by the new wave of extractivism (mining, water, energy) emerging in the heat of the "green and digital transition". Specifically, the project will examine how public institutions and corporations legitimise, regulate and implement environmentally and socially harmful activities under the cover of narratives of modernity, progress, social responsibility and sustainability.
The second line of research aims to trace and reconstruct, empirically and theoretically, the genesis of the current automated and semi-automated decision-making systems used by the repressive system of the Spanish state (security, borders, prisons). To this end, the project will investigate the emergence, development and evolution of colonial technologies of power aimed at governing subaltern, enslaved and racialised populations.
Previously, Aitor was a Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making and Society (ADM+S), where he researched the relationship between law, code and capital, the rapid expansion of automated decision making systems, and the emergence of alternatives to digital capitalism. Aitor writes regularly in El Salto and is active in various political and grassroots movements.
