Reimagining digital development: an intersectional feminist critique of “tech solutionism” in India and Kenya

Despite widespread enthusiasm for digital technologies as pathways to empowerment, critical scholarship shows that innovation alone cannot dismantle entrenched inequities. This article synthesises intersectional feminist and postcolonial critiques of “tech solutionism” through India’s Aadhaar biometric system and Kenya’s M-Pesa mobile money platform, arguing that mechanisms promising efficiency simultaneously reproduce gendered, racialised, and classed exclusions. Through critical narrative synthesis of 211 sources, I advance a proposed framework operationalising participatory co-design, reflexive implementation with privacy safeguards, and equity-oriented evaluation. This conceptual contribution reimagines digital development as collaborative and justice-oriented rather than techno-optimistic, offering a heuristic tool requiring empirical validation.