The Future Is Sovereign offers a clear and critical examination of how data practices shape the contemporary neoliberal global economy.This text defines data colonialism as the continuation of colonial extraction through processes of data capture, classification, and governance, showing how these practices reproduce inequities across sectors such as the economy, healthcare, education, and surveillance. The volume emphasizes the importance of centring knowledge systems and leadership of Indigenous, racialized, and gender-expansive communities in efforts to reshape data as a tool for justice. The collection brings together thirty-nine contributors who draw on interdisciplinary approaches, combining critical theory with participatory and community-based research. It highlights practical forms of resistance to dominant data systems and introduces useful frameworks for institutional change in the context of artificial intelligence and large-scale data use.The Future Is Sovereign challenges the idea that information collection is neutral, instead presenting data as embedded in power relations and political struggle. It calls for forms of data governance grounded in self-determination, accountability, and ethical responsibility. Through a visionary framework of digital sovereignty and relational governance, this book provides the tools to transform data and AI into instruments for justice, liberation, and collective well-being.
