Data colonialism constitutes an antiecology that disrupts the self’s home space

Evidence

The order of data colonialism damages the minimal integrity of the self as a space of self-relation. Yet human beings’ possibility of being “at home” with themselves depends on having access to that space of the self. The damage done by data colonialism is therefore ecological in its nature and not just in its scale. Recall the ancient Greek roots of the word ecology: the task of gathering together a home (legein + oikos). The social order of data colonialism is, in a precise sense, an antiecology that disrupts the basic space of human autonomy and conviviality in a process that might be compared to what biologists call “dysbiosis.” This is the opposite of the successful forms of interdependency between life forms that we call “symbiosis.” Data colonialism disrupts the ecology of human life not for some higher purpose but in the name of pure instrumentality: to support capitalism’s drive to profit. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 606

Categorization

• DEFINE: Precisely defines ‘antiecological’ damage via the Greek roots of ecology (legein + oikos = gathering a home) and the biological dysbiosis/symbiosis contrast.
• XREF: Connects to the attention/surveillance school’s notion of selfhood; reframes extraction as disruption of self-relation rather than merely attentional capture. — connects to: Data appropriation threatens the minimal space of the self — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 75; Quantified-self data systems collapse the reflexive space in which freedom operates — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 520; Resisting data colonialism requires an ecology-of-life frame, not legal regulation — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 567 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Data colonialism may attack the very boundaries of the self. #expands (0.85) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 463
• Data colonialism extracts human life as data for profit through data relations. #expands (0.75) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 32
• Data colonialism expands capitalism by absorbing previously uncommodified life streams #expands (0.75) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 68