Thesis

Title: Governing Data in Modernity/Coloniality: Astronomy Data in the Atacama Desert and the Struggle for Collective Autonomy (2021)

Supervisors: Dr Alison Powell and Professor Nick Couldry

Dr Sebastián Lehuedé is a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Centre of Governance and Human Rights at the University of Cambridge and a PhD Visiting Fellow in the Department of Media and Communications at the LSE. His research focuses on the governance of digital technologies, which he approaches from a global social justice perspective inspired by Latin American decolonial thinking. Sebastián’s current research investigates the shifts taking place in the digital rights movement as a response to data colonialism.

Sebastián holds a PhD in Data, Networks and Society from the Department of Media and Communications at LSE. His doctoral thesis proposed a framework of data governance based on the notion of ‘autonomy’ as circulated by social movements and critical intellectuals in Latin America. In empirical terms, this research examined the hopes and fears of researchers, policy makers and Indigenous activists in Chile regarding the information produced by the international astronomical observatories constructed in the Atacama Desert.

Sebastián has experience in collaborative interdisciplinary research and teaching undergraduate and postgraduate groups of students. Sebastián worked as a research assistant at Virt-EU, an interdisciplinary EU-funded project that analysed the ethics of the Internet of Things. Through his teaching, Sebastián is an Associate Fellow of AdvanceHE. He is also a member of Tierra Común, a network of scholars and activists opposing data colonialism. Sebastián studied Journalism at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile before graduating with Distinction in MSc in Media and Communications at the LSE. He has professional experience in media and political communication.