Criminal Governance and Everyday Life in the Digital Age

Security technologies are booming and digital platforms that were initially a source of socialization and entertainment are becoming important tools for surveillance, threats and propaganda. At the same time, criminal elements worldwide are demonstrating innovative skills, adapting to and integrating digital technologies in their operations. DIGICRIME will examine how local populations and criminal organizations use digital tools and technological innovations to enhance security, engage in illegal activities, or challenge these practices. Examining the everyday use of technologies by both criminals and the communities under their control offers novel perspectives for research. While scholars have extensively studied the intersections of technology and crime, exploring how digital tools are appropriated, adapted, and repurposed within criminalized territories provides an underexplored approach. Drawing on ethnographic research in Kenya and Colombia, this pioneering project on digitalized criminal governance is guided by two main objectives: (i) to investigate how criminal organizations are adapting to technological innovations and using digital platforms for their own operational purposes; and (ii) to explore how communities integrate digital tools into their everyday practices, when they optimize their security and challenge criminal governance.To reveal the entanglement of crime, digital systems and everyday life, DIGICRIME draws on a novel theoretical framework. It advances contemporary debates on criminal governance by adopting a bottom-up perspective. It complements current approaches by examining how daily interactions and personal relationships between residents and criminal groups influence this phenomenon. Additionally, it challenges technological determinism, highlighting how people use and make sense of digital tools. Ultimately, DIGICRIME will unpack how intimate relations and everyday practices shape criminal governance in the digital age.