Data does not become a commodity until extraction processes demarcate it

Evidence

The argument is not that the data extracted from me is already my “property” or “possession” and as such must not be appropriated by another. For until the act of extraction there was no boundedness to the information relating to my life stream—as we have noted many times, data itself is not raw material. What previously was just part of the flow of my activity becomes separately identifiable and so potentially transferable only through the act of extraction. This transformation has nothing to do with whether the individual is already identified. Rather, since life (like land in Karl Polanyi’s historical account of industrial capitalism) is not the sort of thing that is naturally commodified, data requires for its creation institutional processes of extraction and demarcation, from which potential commodities can be generated. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 472

Categorization

• XREF: Directly parallels Polanyi’s ‘fictitious commodities’ as the author acknowledges — connects to ‘Great Transformation’ and the commodification of land, labor, money. — connects to: Data acquires extractability only through socially constructed relations, not as a natural given — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 133; Data extraction annexes life processes beyond productive labor — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 143; Data extraction stabilizes only when naturalized as a normal social form. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 134
• DEFINE: Clarifies the data-colonialism critique’s core move: extraction, not ownership, is the site of harm.

Broader Connections

• Data acquires extractability only through socially constructed relations, not as a natural given #corroborates (0.88) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 133
• Data extraction annexes life processes beyond productive labor #expands (0.75) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 143