Latin American Universities and Platform Solutionism

Abstract

The overall objective of this article is to bring the findings of a qualitative study conducted at six Latin American public universities into dialogue with four overarching ideas concerning the accelerated digitisation that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. The first idea is that universities are undergoing a profound internal transformation induced by a decades-long sociotechnical process of digital platformisation. The second is that this process becomes embedded in institutional imaginaries through an innovation-oriented logic that shapes how universities envision their future. The third idea is that such logic reproduces longstanding patterns of dependence and colonialism, now articulated through data production. The fourth posits that digitisation contributes to the dislocation of university autonomy by fostering privatisation. Based on the results of a documentary review and in-depth interviews, a fifth conclusive idea emerges: the depth of this transformation is most clearly expressed in university communities themselves—among students, faculty, and workers—altering interactions and practices, promoting specific forms of sociability, and thereby consolidating a new sociotechnical university regime. The article concludes by underscoring the need for these changes to be critically examined within the communities involved in order to rethink the future of universities in a post-pandemic context marked by massive digitisation and the widespread use of artificial intelligence.