About
A brief description of who you are and what you do.
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Research
Research interests
- Digital Geographies
- AI and Deep Learning
- Politics of Refusal
- Geographies of Negativity
- Negative affects
Current research
I am a cultural-digital geographer whose work examines digital technologies, negative affects, and the politics of refusal. More specifically, I examine how the politics of resistance shifts in relation to changing technological and urban conditions, and how, in turn, such negative politics push us to rethink geographical understandings of power, affect, and the human.
I am the author of the monograph 'Techno-Negative: A Long History of Refusing the Machine' (University of Minnesota Press, 2026). My research, while grounded in cultural and digital geography, is inspired by critical theory and pessimist philosophies. Methodologically, my work draws on qualitative, archival, and creative methods, with a focus on film. I have recently co-directed MACHINES IN FLAMES (2022; 49min), an experimental documentary about a group of French computer workers who bombed computer firms in the early 1980s, and BREACHED (2024; 15min), a chronicle of modern-day cargo looting.
I often make appearances in newspapers, magazines, and podcasts to discuss resistance to technology (past, present and future). Recently this has included features and interviews in the New York Times Magazine, New Yorker, Vox, New Zealand Post, Die Zeit and Computer Weekly, amongst others.
My current research investigates the connections between AI and authoritarianism, and the various forms of refusal emergent in the face of the deepening saturation of Artificial Intelligences technologies into everyday life, what I refer to as 'AI-Pessimism'.
Some recent publications:
Dekeyser, T. (2026) Techno-Negative: A Long History of Refusing the Machines. University of Minnesota Press.
Lynch, C.R. and Dekeyser, T. (2026) AI Refusal: A Cultural Politics. cultural geographies.
Oliver, C. and Dekeyser, T. (2026) Geographies of Nothingness: Towards Void-Thinking. Social & Cultural Geography.
Dekeyser, T., Lynch, C. & Maalsen, S. (2025) AI Authoritarianism: Towards an Analytical Framework. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers.
Dekeyser, T. & Lynch, C. (2024) Control and Resistance in Automated Shops: Retail Transparency, Deep Learning, and Digital Refusal. Antipode.
Dekeyser, T., Zhang, V. and Bissell, D. (2023) What should we do with bad feelings? Negative affects, impotential responses. Progress in Human Geography.
Dekeyser, T. (2023) Rethinking Posthumanist Subjectivity: Technology as Ontological Murder in European Colonialism. Theory, Culture & Society.
Some recent media engagements:
(interview) “Technologien wie Künstliche Intelligenz werden uns aufgezwungen,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 13 June 2026.
(featured) “Rage against the Machine,” New Zealand Post, 23 May 2026.
(interview) “Künstliche Intelligenz greift alles an,” Die Zeit, 12 May 2026.
(interview) “Faut-il saboter les datacenters?,” Le Grand Continent, 5 May 2026.
(book review/feature) “När kommer upproret mot tech-mogulerna?,” Svenska Dagbladet, 28 April 2026.
(book review/feature) “The Age-Old Urge to Destroy Technology,” The New Yorker, 8 April 2026.
(interview) “Is there life after smartphones?,” New York Times Magazine, 31 March 2026.
(interview) “Why refusing AI is a fight for the soul,” Rest of World, 17 March 2026.
(featured) “Lit Hub’s Most Anticipated Books of 2026,” Literary Hub, 6 January 2026.
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Research interests
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Current research
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Research projects
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Publications
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Supervision
Current PhD Students
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Teaching
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Courses and modules
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External roles and responsibilities
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Biography
Before moving to the University of Southampton, I was a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for the GeoHumanities, Royal Holloway, and a 150th Anniversary Research Fellow in Geography at Aberystwyth University. My BA and MA degrees were in Media Studies (Artevelde University; Goldsmiths University) and in Geography (Royal Holloway), and I undertook my PhD in Geography at the University of Southampton. Before entering academia, I worked as an advertising strategist for Saatchi & Saatchi, a large advertising agency.
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Prizes
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