Solidarities Against Infrastructures of Empire: Bezahlkarte, Digital Money and the Cloud

We are meeting in Germany, where the rolling introduction of the Bezahlkarte, a digital payment card administering benefits for asylum seekers, tells us a much wider story. This payment card is emblematic of overlapping dynamics - securitised, surveillant and restrictive migration control, the digitalisation of welfare, the integration of private companies into public services, the vast societal shift toward digital identification and digital payment, and the bundling of public services into the cloud that are then made accessible through our devices.  

Join us for a brief discussion of existing study and resistance efforts against these digital infrastructures of empire.

Hosted by Spore Initiative, we’ll gather to explore and build upon organising efforts, such as the Nein zur bezahlkarte campaign, the community exchanges ongoing in Berlin and throughout the country, as well as broader international efforts to challenge the rapid transformations shaping our institutions and our everyday lives.

During this informal evening, we invite you to explore what offerings a diverse community of activists, technologists, lawyers, journalists and wider civil society can bring to collectively contest, resist, abolish infrastructures of digital empire – and build toward infrastructures of care.

All ages welcome 

In English 

Bring cash!