Vasilis Kostakis
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 208304 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Vasilis Kostakis |
| PRENOMES | Vasilis |
| SOBRENOME | Kostakis |
| ASSINATURA | KOSTAKIS V |
| AFILIAÇÕES | Tallinn University of Technology |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3276-9282 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 41 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 325 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 41 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 1970 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 7 |
EdTech and the Environment
The global EdTech market, valued at nearly USD 250 billion, generates not only revenue but substantial ecological and planetary costs that the EdTech scholarly community has insufficiently examined. This article argues that those working in and around EdTech bear a moral responsibility to move beyond (non)performative engagement with sustainable development goals toward serious, structural inquiry into the environmental impacts of EdTech. Drawing…
Design global, manufacture local
The resurgence of industrial policy across advanced economies responds to ecological, geopolitical, and socio-economic crises, yet existing frameworks remain contradictory: while seeking resilience, strategic autonomy, and sustainability, they maintain structural dependencies on growth driving ecological overshoot and resource conflicts. Post-growth research proposes transformative alternatives but lacks concrete implementation mechanisms. This a…
Are we practising what we preach? The degrowth academic trap
As a degrowth scholar, I confront an uncomfortable irony: I built my early career through the very "growth" behaviours that degrowth scholarship critiques, i.e., publishing prolifically, accumulating citations, and competing for recognition and funding.This reflects a broader "degrowth academic trap" in which scholars committed to sufficiency, conviviality, and care find themselves rewarded for contradictory behaviours.Thus, it is not arbitrary t…
Reframing Innovation for Post-growth
While traditional science, technology and innovation (STI) policy has emphasised protecting intellectual property through patents and copyright, evidence suggests these tools may not optimally serve both innovators and society. Alternative innovation approaches based on openness and shared technology are emerging that could better address societal needs while supporting more sustainable production. We examine the development of 3D printing techno…
A tunnel to the other side of the world
Journal articles are not widely read, so can academics cultivate their skills in genres which are more popular and persuasive? Can we ‘write differently’? This paper presents an account of a children's story aimed at engaging children and adults in understanding the relationship between inequality and the climate and ecological crises, and aimed at stimulating readers to engage in social change. The subtext of the children’s story is a critique o…
Mountains of change
Another Scalability is Possible! From Non-Scalability to Cosmolocal Scalability
This article addresses Anna Tsing’s critique of capitalist scalability by introducing the concept of “cosmolocal scalability” as an alternative to approaches that prioritise “scale-at-all-costs.” Cosmolocal scalability challenges the idea of homogeneous, frictionless expansion and instead proposes a context-responsive framework that values biodiversity, as well as the diverse ways of knowing and living. This framework enables local communities of…
How to unite local initiatives for a more sustainable global future
This article challenges the belief in high-tech solutions to solve socio-environmental crises, proposing a political vision beyond "green growth" and "ecomodernism.". It advocates for a commons-based technology framework, promoting collective resource management for sustainability. We thus introduce "cosmolocal" production, a configuration that strives to connect communities around shared resources and serve their needs while minimizing ecologica…
Envisioning energy futures through visual images
Beyond global versus local
A reconceptualisation of technology, as a vital component of modern society cutting across all its other aspects, is required to achieve social and environmental sustainability. This paper presents a convivial technology development framework using the concept of “cosmolocal” production. The latter captures the dynamic of dispersed technology initiatives, which exhibit conceptualisations of living, working and making around the commons. It is a s…
Beyond high-tech versus low-tech
Technological imaginaries have been increasingly shaping the future perceptions of cities. From artificial intelligence and distributed ledger technology to three-dimensional printing, high-tech artifacts are very often the premises of such imaginaries. However, technology does not only refer to artifacts. Technology also encompasses the processes around the artifacts: how the artifacts are designed, manufactured, used, maintained, and disposed. …
Are the most influential websites peer-produced or price-incentivized? Organizing value in the digital economy
In 2006, Harvard Law School Professor Yochai Benkler proposed a wager to technology and society author Nicholas Carr. Benkler argued that by 2011 the most influential websites would be based on content produced by people engaged in peer production. Carr maintained that the lure of money and the corporate hierarchies will be more effective. So, after 15 years, who has really won the bet? Are the most influential websites peer-produced or price-inc…
Towards a Theory of Value as a Commons
This essay aspires to explore the contours of a theory of value based on the commons. Its starting point is an understanding of value as a means through which empirical economic phenomena are guided by an underlying structure. Value is understood as the way people’s actions become meaningful to them within a broader social whole defined by the said structure. We approach the digital commons as such a social whole, articulated by distinct value pr…
Is ‘Deschooling Society’ Possible? Notes from the Field
Can peer production democratize technology and society? A critical review of the critiques
Energy governance as a commons
Transitioning into a sustainable energy system is becoming ever more pressing as the reality of an anthropogenic ecological crisis becomes difficult to ignore. Due to the complexity of the matter, proposed solutions often address the symptoms of the current socioeconomic configuration rather than its core. To conceptualise possible future energy systems, this Perspective focuses on the disconnect between science and technology and engineering stu…
Bridging barriers in sustainability research
Should We Look for a Hero to Save Us from the Coronavirus? The Commons as an Alternative Trajectory for Social Change
The coronavirus outbreak has come in the aftermath of other concerning and disastrous events, from the rainforest fires in the Amazon to the wildfires of Australia. So far, the political response worldwide has been limited to identifying the villain and the hero who will first invent the life-saving vaccine. However, in a time of crisis, it is becoming obvious that the problem is not external but rather embedded and systemic. We argue that a poli…
From private to public governance
Peer to Peer
Not since Marx identified the manufacturing plants of Manchester as the blueprint for the new capitalist society has there been a more profound transformation of the fundamentals of our social life. As capitalism faces a series of structural crises, a new social, political and economic dynamic is emerging: peer to peer. What is peer to peer? Why is it essential for building a commons-centric future? How could this happen? These are the questions …
In defense of digital commoning
This article is a reply to ‘The illusion of the digital commons’, an idea introduced by Ossewaarde and Reijers. Their criticism challenges those of us arguing that digital commons are emancipatory, exhibiting post-capitalist dynamics. From the perspective of the digital commoner as well as that of the scholar who studies commoning practices, my thesis is that digital commoning is not grounded in a-political principles as the authors claim. But ra…
Research On Degrowth
Scholars and activists mobilize increasingly the term degrowth when producing knowledge critical of the ideology and costs of growth-based development. Degrowth signals a radical political and economic reorganization leading to reduced resource and energy use. The degrowth hypothesis posits that such a trajectory of social transformation is necessary, desirable, and possible; the conditions of its realization require additional study. Research on…
Peer‐to‐Peer
For technologically oriented people, peer‐to‐peer (P2P) refers to a distributed form of networking computers, without passing through centralized servers, for different kinds of cooperative endeavors, such as file sharing and music distribution. However, this interpretation is arguably limited in scope. From a broader perspective, P2P can be viewed as a template of human relationships which is springing up throughout the various social fields and…
Blockchain and value systems in the sharing economy
Introduction
Today, two great signs of change are occurring. On the one hand, the capitalist world economy is putting tremendous pressure on the earth’s biosphere and bringing an onslaught of destruction to immediate environments and vulnerable people worldwide. On the other hand, the rise of new and progressive social-economic foundations is the result of an unprecedented increase of information and communication technologies (ICTs). Therefore it is arguably…
Research On Degrowth
Scholars and activists mobilize increasingly the term degrowth when producing knowledge critical of the ideology and costs of growth-based development. Degrowth signals a radical political and economic reorganization leading to reduced resource and energy use. The degrowth hypothesis posits that such a trajectory of social transformation is necessary, desirable, and possible; the conditions of its realization require additional study. Research on…
Peer to Peer
Not since Marx identified the manufacturing plants of Manchester as the blueprint for the new capitalist society has there been a more profound transformation of the fundamentals of our social life. As capitalism faces a series of structural crises, a new social, political and economic dynamic is emerging: peer to peer. What is peer to peer? Why is it essential for building a commons-centric future? How could this happen? These are the questions …
Design global, manufacture local
Blockchain and value systems in the sharing economy
Production and governance in hackerspaces
This article deals with the phenomenon of hackerspaces and sheds light on the relationship of their underlying values, organizational structures and productive processes to those of the online communities of Commons-based peer production projects. While hackerspaces adopt hybrid modes of governance, this article attempts to identify patterns, trends and theory that can frame their production and governance mechanisms. Using a diverse amount of li…
Towards a political ecology of the digital economy
The Amateur Class, or, The Reserve Army of the Web
This article deals with the transformation of the computer industry that has been inaugurated by the new version of the Web. The advent of the social web—or Web 2.0, according to Tim O'Reilly (2006)—gives rise to the formation of the amateur class and to new modes of exploitation, as the amateur starts to have control over the means of Web production. The function of Web 2.0 within capitalist production is to exploit and valorize the volunteer co…
Beyond global versus local
A reconceptualisation of technology, as a vital component of modern society cutting across all its other aspects, is required to achieve social and environmental sustainability. This paper presents a convivial technology development framework using the concept of “cosmolocal” production. The latter captures the dynamic of dispersed technology initiatives, which exhibit conceptualisations of living, working and making around the commons. It is a s…
Energy governance as a commons
Transitioning into a sustainable energy system is becoming ever more pressing as the reality of an anthropogenic ecological crisis becomes difficult to ignore. Due to the complexity of the matter, proposed solutions often address the symptoms of the current socioeconomic configuration rather than its core. To conceptualise possible future energy systems, this Perspective focuses on the disconnect between science and technology and engineering stu…
A peer-to-peer approach to energy production
Peer Production and Desktop Manufacturing
Through the case of the Helix_T wind turbine project, this article sets out to argue two points: first, on a theoretical level, that Commons-based peer production, in conjunction with the emerging technological capabilities of three-dimensional printing, can also produce promising hardware, globally designed and locally produced. Second, the Commons-oriented wind turbine examined here is also meant to practically contribute to the quest for novel…
The political economy of information production in the Social Web
This paper is based on the idea that information production on the Web is mainly taking place within either proprietary- or Commons-based platforms. The productive processes of those two ‘workplaces’ of information production do share some certain characteristics, but they also have several crucial differences. These two modes of production are discussed here and it is investigated how production is organised in each case. In addition, the paper …
Bridging barriers in sustainability research
Beyond high-tech versus low-tech
Technological imaginaries have been increasingly shaping the future perceptions of cities. From artificial intelligence and distributed ledger technology to three-dimensional printing, high-tech artifacts are very often the premises of such imaginaries. However, technology does not only refer to artifacts. Technology also encompasses the processes around the artifacts: how the artifacts are designed, manufactured, used, maintained, and disposed. …
Towards a Theory of Value as a Commons
This essay aspires to explore the contours of a theory of value based on the commons. Its starting point is an understanding of value as a means through which empirical economic phenomena are guided by an underlying structure. Value is understood as the way people’s actions become meaningful to them within a broader social whole defined by the said structure. We approach the digital commons as such a social whole, articulated by distinct value pr…
From private to public governance
How to unite local initiatives for a more sustainable global future
This article challenges the belief in high-tech solutions to solve socio-environmental crises, proposing a political vision beyond "green growth" and "ecomodernism.". It advocates for a commons-based technology framework, promoting collective resource management for sustainability. We thus introduce "cosmolocal" production, a configuration that strives to connect communities around shared resources and serve their needs while minimizing ecologica…
Envisioning energy futures through visual images
The (A)Political Economy of Bitcoin
The still raging financial crisis of 2007–2008 has enabled the emergence of several alternative practices concerning the production, circulation and use of money. This essay explores the political economy of the Bitcoin ecosystem. Specifically, we examine the context in which this digital currency is emerging as well as its nature, dynamics, advantages, and disadvantages. We conclude that Bitcoin, a truly interesting experiment, exemplifies "dist…
The Amateur Class, or, The Reserve Army of the Web
This article deals with the transformation of the computer industry that has been inaugurated by the new version of the Web. The advent of the social web—or Web 2.0, according to Tim O'Reilly (2006)—gives rise to the formation of the amateur class and to new modes of exploitation, as the amateur starts to have control over the means of Web production. The function of Web 2.0 within capitalist production is to exploit and valorize the volunteer co…
Peer governance and Wikipedia
Wikipedia has been hailed as one of the most prominent peer projects that led to the rise of the concept of peer governance. However, criticism has been levelled against Wikipedia's mode of governance. This paper, using the Wikipedia case as a point of departure and building upon the conflict between inclusionists and deletionists, tries to identify and draw some conclusions on the problematic issue of peer governance
The political economy of information production in the Social Web
This paper is based on the idea that information production on the Web is mainly taking place within either proprietary- or Commons-based platforms. The productive processes of those two ‘workplaces’ of information production do share some certain characteristics, but they also have several crucial differences. These two modes of production are discussed here and it is investigated how production is organised in each case. In addition, the paper …
The Parody of the Commons
This essay builds on the idea that Commons-based peer production is a social advancement within capitalism but with various post-capitalistic aspects, in need of protection, enforcement, stimulation and connection with progressive social movements. We use theory and examples to claim that peer-to-peer economic relations can be undermined in the long run, distorted by the extra-economic means of a political context designed to maintain profit-driv…
At the Turning Point of the Current Techno-Economic Paradigm
Following the theory of techno-economic paradigm shifts (TEPS), this paper calls attention to the phenomenon of Commons-based peer production (CBPP). In the context of the current paradigm, it argues that civil society can play an important role in creating favourable conditions for a more sustainable global knowledge society. Approaching tentatively the ways in which 3D printing and other desktop manufacturing technologies can be used in CBPP, i…
Commons-based peer production and artistic expression
This essay narrates, from a creator-observation perspective, the production of two works of fiction, a book of short stories and a play, based on the principles and technologies of Commons-based peer production. This is potentially interesting from both the Commons-based peer production and the literary perspective. Even though both seem well-matched by their prima facie lack of profit orientation, Commons-based peer production case studies rarel…
Peer Production and Desktop Manufacturing
Through the case of the Helix_T wind turbine project, this article sets out to argue two points: first, on a theoretical level, that Commons-based peer production, in conjunction with the emerging technological capabilities of three-dimensional printing, can also produce promising hardware, globally designed and locally produced. Second, the Commons-oriented wind turbine examined here is also meant to practically contribute to the quest for novel…
Network Society and Future Scenarios for a Collaborative Economy
This book builds on the idea that peer-to-peer infrastructures are gradually becoming the general conditions of work, economy, and society. Using a four-scenario approach, the authors seek to simplify
From the Communism of Capital to Capital for the Commons
Two prominent social progressive movements are faced with a few contradictions and a paradox. On the one side, we have a re-emergence of the co-operative movement and worker-owned enterprises which suffer from certain structural weaknesses. On the other, we have an emergent field of open and Commons-oriented peer production initiatives which create common pools of knowledge for the whole of humanity, but are dominated by start-ups and large multi…
Should Law Keep Pace With Technology? Law as Katechon
It is a commonly held belief that the law is unable to keep up with the fierce technological development and innovation that denote our times. The current essay attempts to show that this characteristic of the law should not necessarily be considered a disadvantage. Using the Biblical concept of the katechon, we argue that the law fulfills a katechontic function vis-a-vis technological progress. That is to say, its retarding effect might create p…
Production and governance in hackerspaces
This article deals with the phenomenon of hackerspaces and sheds light on the relationship of their underlying values, organizational structures and productive processes to those of the online communities of Commons-based peer production projects. While hackerspaces adopt hybrid modes of governance, this article attempts to identify patterns, trends and theory that can frame their production and governance mechanisms. Using a diverse amount of li…
A peer-to-peer approach to energy production
Design global, manufacture local
Introduction
Today, two great signs of change are occurring. On the one hand, the capitalist world economy is putting tremendous pressure on the earth’s biosphere and bringing an onslaught of destruction to immediate environments and vulnerable people worldwide. On the other hand, the rise of new and progressive social-economic foundations is the result of an unprecedented increase of information and communication technologies (ICTs). Therefore it is arguably…
Download the Entire Special Section Here
The Materiality of the Immaterial: ICTs and the Digital Commons, edited by Andreas Roos, Vasilis Kostakis, Christos Giotitsas Today, two great signs of change are occurring. On the one hand, the capitalist world economy is putting tremendous pressure on the earth’s biosphere and bringing an onslaught of destruction to immediate environments and vulnerable people worldwide. On the other hand, the rise of new and progressive social-economic foundat…
Towards a political ecology of the digital economy
Peer‐to‐Peer
For technologically oriented people, peer‐to‐peer (P2P) refers to a distributed form of networking computers, without passing through centralized servers, for different kinds of cooperative endeavors, such as file sharing and music distribution. However, this interpretation is arguably limited in scope. From a broader perspective, P2P can be viewed as a template of human relationships which is springing up throughout the various social fields and…
Blockchain and value systems in the sharing economy
In defense of digital commoning
This article is a reply to ‘The illusion of the digital commons’, an idea introduced by Ossewaarde and Reijers. Their criticism challenges those of us arguing that digital commons are emancipatory, exhibiting post-capitalist dynamics. From the perspective of the digital commoner as well as that of the scholar who studies commoning practices, my thesis is that digital commoning is not grounded in a-political principles as the authors claim. But ra…
Research On Degrowth
Scholars and activists mobilize increasingly the term degrowth when producing knowledge critical of the ideology and costs of growth-based development. Degrowth signals a radical political and economic reorganization leading to reduced resource and energy use. The degrowth hypothesis posits that such a trajectory of social transformation is necessary, desirable, and possible; the conditions of its realization require additional study. Research on…
Peer to Peer
Not since Marx identified the manufacturing plants of Manchester as the blueprint for the new capitalist society has there been a more profound transformation of the fundamentals of our social life. As capitalism faces a series of structural crises, a new social, political and economic dynamic is emerging: peer to peer. What is peer to peer? Why is it essential for building a commons-centric future? How could this happen? These are the questions …
Should We Look for a Hero to Save Us from the Coronavirus? The Commons as an Alternative Trajectory for Social Change
The coronavirus outbreak has come in the aftermath of other concerning and disastrous events, from the rainforest fires in the Amazon to the wildfires of Australia. So far, the political response worldwide has been limited to identifying the villain and the hero who will first invent the life-saving vaccine. However, in a time of crisis, it is becoming obvious that the problem is not external but rather embedded and systemic. We argue that a poli…
From private to public governance
Is ‘Deschooling Society’ Possible? Notes from the Field
Political science (31 obras) · Computer Science (24 obras) · Economics (24 obras) · Commons (22 obras) · Sociology (22 obras) · Business (18 obras) · Law (17 obras) · Politics (15 obras) · Open Source Software Innovations (12 obras) · peer production (12 obras)