Data colonialism is misread through Autonomist Marxism’s labor framework and needs a colonial-era timescale

Evidence

But Autonomists were rather vague about the mechanisms of this general intensification of capitalism’s influence over social life, except when they claimed the structure and norms of capitalist work somehow expanded out into social life. That idea gives us no grip at all on data colonialism, which, as we have shown, appropriates life as raw material whether or not it is actually labor, or even labor-like. Our temporal scale for appreciating these developments should be not so much the past half century of socializing capitalism, especially in Europe, but the centuries-long global cycle of colonialism’s long intertwining with capitalism. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 153

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to the reader’s goal of mapping the data-colonialism frame against a rival attention/surveillance school; also situates the argument against Marxist/Autonomist readings, echoing the Israel/coloniality literature on extraction frames. — connects to: Data colonialism can only be understood within the longer history of colonialism and capitalism — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 57; Data colonialism must be theorized by combining, not choosing among, critical frameworks — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 57; Data colonialism requires transforming society itself, not just extracting value — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 365 (+3 more)
• DEFINE: Clarifies the precise scope of ‘data colonialism’ by demarcating it from the Autonomist ‘social factory’ notion — the key definitional boundary for establishing this as a distinct frame.

Broader Connections

• Data colonialism can only be understood within the longer history of colonialism and capitalism #corroborates (0.92) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 57
• The 4X framework exposes continuity between historical and data colonialism #corroborates (0.85) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 274
• Data colonialism’s temporality differs from prior colonialism’s engagement with the past #qualifies (0.82) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 637
• Data colonialism requires transforming society itself, not just extracting value #corroborates (0.78) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 365
• Data colonialism must be theorized by combining, not choosing among, critical frameworks #expands (0.75) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 57
• Data colonialism, social quantification, and Cloud Empire form a single framework #expands (0.73) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 163