Digital sovereignty is becoming increasingly a business niche rather than a genuine alternative to corporate giant monopolists. In an attempt to counter this trend, this workshop will bring together activists and researchers to discuss how to foster public participation in decision-making on data centres. Rather than focus on a single case of resistance, we will aim to find common ground between different data struggles. Contestation of computational infrastructure has taken place in many separate national and regional contexts. What is direly missing still are opportunities for collaboration, exchange of experience, and building common fronts across these diverse experiences.
Corporate monopolists have skillfully used the rhetoric of 'sharing', while engaging in a process of vertical integration and making themselves indispensable for public communication. The workshop aims to foster popular sovereignty across borders and build towards collective mobilization that uses an alternative rhetoric of solidarity. Solidarity against extractivism across the technological stack. But also solidarity in the search for alternatives to corporate giants and their profit driven model. With these broader goals in mind, we will collectively identify common problems as well as concrete strategies for engagement with local, regional and national executives and legislatures to ensure that citizens voices are heard. No computation without popular representation.