The Right to Opacity in the Age of Data Colonialism: Reading African Speculative Fiction through Glissant and Couldry–Mejias

Author(s)	Dr. Mehak Bakshi
Country	India
Abstract	In our current digital age, technology companies rely on “data colonialism”, a process where human experiences, cultures, and creative works are constantly mined for data to feed artificial intelligence. According to theorists Nick Couldry and Ulises A. Mejias, this system treats human life as a free resource to be extracted and categorized. This paper explores how modern African speculative fiction pushes back against this digital extraction by using Édouard Glissant’s concept of the “right to opacity”, which is the right to remain complex and not fully understood. Rather than just treating opacity as a theme within the story, this study argues that African authors use it as a core storytelling strategy. By playing with non-linear time, mixing languages that are difficult to translate, and building highly complex worlds, these novels actively resist being turned into simple, readable data. In doing so, African speculative fiction challenges the tech world’s demand for total transparency, showing how literary structure itself can be a powerful tool to protect cultural sovereignty from modern data colonialism.
Keywords	Data Colonialism, Édouard Glissant, Right to Opacity, African Speculative Fiction, AI Data Extraction, Literary Form, Digital Humanities
Field	Arts
Published In	Volume 8, Issue 4, July-August 2026
Published On	2026-07-26
DOI	https://doi.org/10.36948/ijfmr.2026.v08i04.84665

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