Technologies of Elite Capture
Under review
2024
The recent emergence of accent-matching voice technology has been understood as a means to mask accents in real time and bridge sonic markers of national, ethnic, and racial difference within call-center work. The marketing of this ‘technology of empathy’ as a key to ending accent-discrimination and empowering workers, speaks to what we call a peculiar alliance between cultures of innovation and diversity-washing, where entrepreneurs, venture capital, and modes of labor-discipline conspire towards ending racism and saving the world. To begin theorizing this historical moment, we draw on affect theory to shore up the techno-fantasies that accompany rhetorics of global empathy, connectivity, and empowerment. Through an analysis of a contemporary accent-matching platform, Sanas, we trace the means by which this historical moment finds its genre. We forward an affective reading of how Sanas positions itself as ally to the interests of brown workers and as a salve to an originary trauma of discrimination, to address how the rhetoric of affect enters the global politics and affective economy of racial capitalism. Through this discussion, we build on the notion of contaminated diversity to grapple with the cruel optimism of DEI-innovation, where ‘empathy’ turns difference into whiteness and care-work into customer service, where the desire for connection melts into cruel dreamscapes of meritocracy, and where this project of making globalization ‘feel good’ is constantly haunted by the specter of revolt.
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