Data colonialism requires transforming society itself, not just extracting value

Evidence

Polanyi’s analysis has provocative implications for today. As he makes clear, the market transformation that data colonialism involves will not succeed by itself: it will require its own social transformation that, initially, is likely to be violent, or at least dislocating. At the core of any such social transformation will be “the commodity concept.” Capitalism, to reap the benefits of data colonialism, must make the social domain into a marketized space whose every point has value and is available for commodity exchange. Data relations, and the new forms of “knowledge” to which they give rise, are the key means to this. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 365

Categorization

• SEED: The claim that data extraction ‘will require its own social transformation, initially likely to be violent or dislocating’ is a striking empirical hypothesis worth testing against platform rollouts in Global South countries — a possible essay on the dislocations that preceded datafication.
• ADDENDUM: Echoes and generalizes the ‘On Sacrifice’ theme of painful transformative processes being socially engineered rather than accidental.
• XREF: connects to: Data colonialism fuses economic and cognitive power in an order as durable as capitalism — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 30; Data colonialism extracts human life as data for profit through data relations. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 32; Data extraction is historically unprecedented yet clarifies through colonial-capitalist continuity. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 33 (+24 more)