Intersectional AI Governance for Higher Education in Colombia: Toward Ethical and Sovereign Digital Futures in Latinamerica

Abstract

In Colombia's Orinoquía region, digital transformation in higher education confronts a fundamental challenge where educators cannot govern what they cannot reliably access. This paper presents findings from a two-year mixed-methods study examining how gender, geography, and institutional structures (among others), shape AI governance amid fragile telecommunications infrastructure. Through surveys with 228 faculty members and 26 in-depth interviews (13 male, 13 female educators) across four departments, we document how unstable connectivity (where power outages simultaneously sever Internet access), forces educators to sustain innovation through personal devices and improvisation. Behind institutional declarations of “AI readiness,” we reveal practices of AI washing, which is the symbolic modernization without infrastructure investment. Yet educators develop collaborative responses that embody alternative governance logics. Grounded in these findings, I propose Intersectional AI Governance (IAIG), a framework combining feminist ethics of care, decolonial design, and debates around technological autonomy in peripheral contexts. The study offers equity indicators and participatory mechanisms applicable to telecommunications policy and international standards development, demonstrating how Latin American contexts illuminate pathways toward context-aware, inclusive digital transformation.