Author: Layla Solatan

Ctrl-V: Tech, Design, and the Replication of Systems of Oppression was Solatan’s undergraduate thesis at Mills College for her B.A. in International Economics.

This document provides a condensed version of the content of the original paper.

<aside> <img src="/icons/document_pink.svg" alt="/icons/document_pink.svg" width="40px" /> This paper provides a look into the role of design in reproducing existing social hierarchies and threatening class consciousness. As technology becomes rapidly more prominent in human routine, its design plays a crucial role in its cultural, psychological, political, and economic impact on individuals and communities.

Studying the social norms and systems that influence design, the author deconstructs everyday design behaviors and the danger they pose to society and individual social groups.

The author offers a new term, coded fetishism, to analyze the cyclical nature of technology design and how it may perpetuate false class consciousness.

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The mechanisms by which the design of technology replicates systems of oppression and threatens class consciousness can be understood by this 4-part cyclical process:

<aside> <img src="/icons/square-one-fourth_green.svg" alt="/icons/square-one-fourth_green.svg" width="40px" /> First, social stratification.

The divisions and separation of humans into subgroups on the basis of race, socioeconomic status, gender, sexuality, and more

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Second, social control and surveillance capitalism.

The controlling of groups through surveillance, monopolizing basic needs, and mining personal data on individual and group behavior

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<aside> <img src="/icons/square-three-fourths_green.svg" alt="/icons/square-three-fourths_green.svg" width="40px" /> Third, The New Jim Code (Benjamin, 2019).

The illusion of more progressive and objective technology

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<aside> <img src="/icons/square-alternate_green.svg" alt="/icons/square-alternate_green.svg" width="40px" /> Lastly, coded fetishism (Solatan, 2021). ****

The process by which technology design reinforces cultural hegemony and perpetuates false consciousness by reconditioning commodity fetishism

The mechanisms by which the design of technology replicates systems of oppression and threatens class consciousness can be understood by this 4-part cyclical process:

Social stratification

Surveillance capitalism & social control

The New Jim Code

Coded fetishism