Data relations fuse knowledge production with value extraction in one movement

Evidence

The challenge that data colonialism poses for social life and for critical social research is entirely new and disturbing. Because this new colonialism’s mode of operation involves producing the materials from which information, and ultimately knowledge, are made, its operations cannot be insulated from how we understand the worlds we share, from our social imagination and even our politics. Data relations generate value in the very same movement in which they redescribe and remap the world, fusing knowledge production and value extraction. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 362

Categorization

• DEFINE: Sharpens the definitional core of ‘data colonialism’: its distinctive causal claim is the fusion of epistemics and extraction.
• XREF: Contrasts with the attention/surveillance school where the load-bearing mechanism is attention capture or behavioral surplus rather than knowledge-production itself. — connects to: Micro-level data relations are rendered commonsensical by extractive rationalities — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 297; Data colonial extraction persists by converting data relations into durable social relations — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 84; Modern state power and the fact-value split jointly enabled power-knowledge fusion — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 168 (+3 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that value extraction and knowledge production are the same movement — not merely co-occurring — is a paradigm-level thesis distinguishing data colonialism from rival frames.

Broader Connections

• Data colonial extraction persists by converting data relations into durable social relations #expands (0.85) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 84
• Colonial extraction logics are structurally recapitulated in contemporary data platforms #exemplifies (0.80) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 346
• The examination fuses power relations with knowledge relations into one mechanism #corroborates (0.75) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 284
• Framing technology as autonomous disguises who profits from data extraction #expands (0.75) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 511
• Modern state power and the fact-value split jointly enabled power-knowledge fusion #complicates (0.70) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 168