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Digital Destitution: A Mechanism of and for Inequality

  • Blanca Gordo

Abstract

In this talk, Blanca Gordo argues that the use of technology has become a requirement for day-to-day functions such as applying for jobs, transactions with the bureaucracy or even getting a bus ticket in regions that are technologically advanced. These functions were feasible in the past without the use of technology, but in the current context, people without access to technology are finding day-to-day functions challenging. Gordo has coined the term “digital destitution” to explain this phenomenon.

In the second part of the talk, Gordo looks at the nature of digital destitution by looking at populations without access to broadband technology within California. She argues that the poor and racial minorities such as African-American and the Latino population are the worst affected by digital destitution within California.

Speaker Bio

Blanca Gordo, Ph.D., is a visiting scholar at the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues at the University of California at Berkeley where she is writing her book, "Digital Destitution in the Digital Age." Most recently, she was the Academic Coordinator for the Center for Latino Policy Research at the University of California at Berkeley, where she directed public policy initiatives, program development, and the Technology and Development Research Group. Gordo holds a doctorate in City and Regional Planning from the University of California, Berkeley. She specializes in regional-local economic development, urban poverty, local technology development processes, organizational analysis and development, public policy, ethnic populations (African Americans and Latinos), demographics, and social inequality structures.