Conference Agenda

This research examines how Brazilian camgirls develop techno-corporeal practices that simultaneously incorporate and resist platform capitalism's logics of abstraction. Drawing on Sobchack's concept of embodiment and Paasonen's carnal resonances, we investigate how performers navigate increasingly restrictive platform governance while creating affective connections through their bodies. Through a qualitative methodology triangulating virtual ethnography, interviews with ten Brazilian camgirls, and walkthrough analysis of platforms, this study reveals three key findings. First, performers develop embodied technical knowledge that enables them to circumvent platform control mechanisms, including multi-platform presence despite exclusivity requirements. Second, in response to high commission rates and payment barriers on mainstream platforms, camgirls create parallel economic systems using Brazil's state-managed PIX payment infrastructure, circumventing both platform commissions and dollar-based payment systems that many local consumers resist using. Third, these practices constitute forms of "regulated embodiment"—a condition where performers must balance platform compliance with embodied resistance. The Brazilian context reveals a distinctive dynamic where the state-managed payment system provides an infrastructural alternative to corporate financial intermediaries that routinely engage in financial deplatforming of sex workers. By examining how bodies become sites where platform governance, affective labor, and resistance converge, this research contributes to understanding embodied digital labor in the global south.

What happens when grassroots organizations take data into their own hands? This study investigates the activism of the Associação Brasileira de Acesso à Cannabis Medicinal do Rio de Janeiro (Abrario), a brazilian bottom-up organization challenging the state by producing and circulating data on cannabis-based medicine. Investigating Abrario’s work at the intersection of Critical Data Studies and Critical Citizenship Studies, this research highlights how marginalized communities negotiate the legitimacy of grassroots data within rigid institutional frameworks. By contesting the exclusionary practices of state and regulatory authorities, Abrario not only exposes the frictions and power struggles embedded in data legitimization, but also highlights the transformative potential of grassroots data in reshaping narratives about healthcare and citizenship.

Centering perspectives from the Global South, this study moves beyond technical debates to explore the symbolic and poetic dimensions of datafication. It argues for understanding grassroots data activism as part of local data ecosystems, dynamic spaces of negotiation, translation, and reimagination. The study uncovers the tension between bottom-up data and institutional skepticism, offering a nuanced look at the rounds of legitimization involved in bottom-up data practices. This research contributes to global conversations on epistemic justice, demonstrating how organizations like Abrario redefine data imaginaries and governance, challenge top-down notions of citizenship, and offer a blueprint for bottom-up communities to reclaim agency through data.

This work seeks to survey the ways in which artificial intelligence has affected Brazilian carnival, especially that of samba schools in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo and its cultural environment. This survey will serve as the basis for a cultural critique that will reflect on the ways in which this imaginary of technique, which imputes to us an almost Faustian urgency of efficiency, productivity, speed and future, affects a cultural manifestation marked by social criticism, revolution and appreciation of community and artisanal work.The basis for this criticism is the theory of archetypological imagery, which is that this epitome of technique is a demarcation of Western ways of feeling, thinking and acting since the 19th century (Durand, 2012). The reasoning is complemented by questions from Neil Postman, for whom the relentless advancement of technology harms the preservation of traditions, impacting mental processes and social relations in a community (1994, p. 12). Far from seeking an apocalyptic alignment that rejects technological transformations, we understand that popular festivals are characterized by social dynamism. However, by questioning the way in which these adherences have been made in an unreflective way, we hope to collaborate with critical thinking and complex reflection on a phenomenon that will affect our own way of relating to tradition.

This study investigates engagement exchanges among Brazilian TikTok users, decentralized and collective practices aimed at producing data and metrics to help profiles qualify for the platform’s monetization program. Through the analysis of 123 TikTok videos, the study reveals a dynamic marked by diffuse collaboration and an ethic of reciprocity, where strategic engagement is promoted to boost visibility and meet monetization criteria. These practices involve the use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI), employing static images, videos, and audio to guide interactions. Creators leverage the platform’s affordances through data-driven strategies to "play the game" of the algorithm. Findings suggest that engagement exchanges differ from traditional platform labor structures, as they prioritize collective monetization eligibility rather than professional content creation. This distinguishes engagement exchanges on TikTok from engagement pods on Instagram, which focus on brand partnerships and long-term influencer careers. In the Brazilian context, these practices are shaped by historical labor precarity, reinforcing platform-driven aspirations of economic mobility while simultaneously obscuring exploitative labor dynamics. The findings also reveal an ongoing tension between reciprocity-based collaboration and TikTok’s individualistic monetization model.