The Sally Hacker Prize was established in 1999 to honor exceptional scholarship that reaches beyond the academy toward a broad audience. Any book published in the three years preceding the year of the award is eligible.
David Nemer, 2024 Hacker Prize recipient, replied via Zoom at the Awards Event in Chile. (Photo SHOT)
The Sally Hacker Prize Committee proudly honors David Nemer’s Technology of the Oppressed as an exemplary work of scholarship bridging academic rigor and real-world relevance. Through textured storytelling and penetrating theoretical insights, Nemer’s historical and ethnographic study delves into how residents of Brazil’s favelas repurpose everyday technologies and spaces to mitigate oppression and enhance quality of life. Manifold acts of appropriation—ranging from repairing and improvising technology to utilizing Community Technology Centers—manifest as acts of resilience and hope grounded in Paulo Freire’s theories of consciousness and liberation. At the same time, Nemer underscores the ambivalence of digital technologies as both potentially liberatory and oppressive, providing avenues for socialization and resistance while at the same time facilitating surveillance, unchecked data mining, and the spread of misinformation. Technology of the Oppressed challenges us to reexamine the interplay between technology, agency, and justice, and stands as a compelling testament to the creative and critical capacities of marginalized communities in the twenty-first century.