‘Data as the New Oil’

Abstract The digital technology sector promotes digitalisation as a greener way to engage in capitalist processes that ensure economic progress. This narrative is misleading as components of the digital sector, such as digital devices, data centres, but also the Internet, are not in fact immaterial but require large amounts of natural resources and often even human labour for their construction and powering. These extractivist practices are based on colonial views and mechanisms, which persist into today. The Afrofuturist movie Neptune Frost (2021) addresses this topic by telling the story of a group of coltan miners in Burundi. Additionally, the movie engages with yet another form of extractivism, namely the exploitation of personal data, which economists also treat as a natural resource. This paper thus examines these various forms of extractivism as they are portrayed in Neptune Frost , including the depicted ways of resisting them.