Aggregate Research Professor Aitor Jiménez joined the International Institute for the Sociology of Law in May 2024 as part of a 5-year Ramon y Cajal tenure track position. He also serves as a law professor at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) and is affiliated with the University of Melbourne Criminology Department and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society (ADM+S).
Background
Aitor has a transdisciplinary academic and professional background in law, sociology, criminology, and politics. During the period 2021-2024, he was postdoctoral researcher at the University of Melbourne node (Law School) of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society (ADM+S). Previously, he taught and research at the University of Auckland (2016-2019). He was also visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley Ethnic Studies Department (2013-2015). Professionally he has participated as a pro bono lawyer in anti-repressive causes and provided specialized advice to political organisations.
Research Profile
Aitor´s research and teaching are informed by his commitment to social, environmental, and anticolonial struggles. His lived experience with the criminal justice system has also nurtured his interest in police and prison abolition research and practices. In this regard, his current research interests are structured around four areas:
• Racial capitalism, coloniality, and prison abolition
• Crimes of the powerful (state and corporate crime)
• Law, extractivism, and environmental struggles
• Critical technology and data studies
Aitor is available to supervise research projects in any of these areas. You can reach out to him at: aitor.jimenez@ehu.eus.
During the next five years, he will lead two research projects: "The Colonial Lives of Data" and "Law and Green Extractivism."
The first project will explore the racist genealogies that underpin current sociotechnical and sociolegal systems. This project expands his postdoctoral research by situating it within the context of European racist punitivism. Specifically, he hopes to trace a genealogy of the datafication mechanisms used by Spanish repressive institutions against their historical enemies and subjects of domination.
The second project will critically analyse the latest wave of environmental devastation unleashed by states and corporations in the context of the (mis)called "green and digital" transitions. Specifically, he will investigate the supply chain of technologies such as AI, paying special attention to the mining sector and the exploitation of primary resources.
Featured publications
2023: The Islamophobic Consensus. In Z. Bednarz (ed.) Money, Power, and AI: Automated Banks and Automated States. Cambridge University Press. [With Ainhoa Nadia Douhaibi]
2023: The Catalan Digital Republic: Between Nation Branding and Nation Building. Ethnopolitics, DOI: 10.1080/17449057.2023.2275883 . [With Estitxu Garai]
2022: Law, Code and Exploitation: How Corporations Regulate the Working Conditions of the Digital Proletariat. Critical Sociology, 48(2), 361-373.
2021: Surveillance Punitivism: Colonialism, Racism, and State Terrorism in Spain. Surveillance & Society, 19(3), 374-378 [With Ekaitz Cancela]
2020: The Silicon Doctrine. Triple C: Communication, Capitalism & Critique. Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society, 18(1), 322-336.
