When digital capitalism takes (on) the neighbourhood

Data Activism Meets Place-Based Collective Action

Bibliographic Data

ID6220107
AuthorsVassilis Charitsis (0000-0003-3745-0120, Brunel Business School, Brunel University London, London, UK), Mikko Laamanen (0000-0003-3737-9934, Lifestyle Research Center, EMLYON Business School, Écully, France, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume23
Issue3
Pages320-337
Publication date2024-05-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial movement studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1474-2829 • E-ISSN: 1474-2837
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14742837.2022.2123314
OpenAlexW4295670476
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited60

Recent social movement scholarship has highlighted the instrumental and material roles played by digital technologies in supporting collective action and new cultures of organizing. This research seldom considers the symbolic role of digital technologies and data. However, the extraction and exploitation of data, described as data colonialism, facilitate novel opportunities for capitalist expansion in the everyday. Extensive data appropriation and commodification have led to a growing interest in data activism which challenges dominant data politics. Focusing on the intersection of data activism and local organising of collective action, this article examines two cases of how Big Tech disrupts everyday life and becomes a grievance used for mobilisation. With these cases, we illustrate how protest campaigns react to Google’s aim to colonise both digital and physical spheres of life. The first case concerns the creation of a Google Campus in Berlin, while the second focuses on the Sidewalk Toronto urban development project led by the Google subsidiary, SideWalk Labs. Both projects were met with resistance comprising elements of data activism, mobilised as the Fuck Off Google and #blocksidewalk campaigns. Beyond rallying local discontent around impending gentrification and increased housing prices, the campaigns raised awareness about digital giants’ unethical data practices and underscored alternative human-centric technologies and data politics. Employing frame analysis, we elaborate on the intersecting dynamics of traditional, community-based grassroots mobilisation and data activism against Googlization and explore the potentialities and limitations toward contextualising collective action for (rather than in) the digital age

Appropriation · Collective action · Commodification · Economic growth · Economy · Everyday life · Gentrification · Grassroots · Media studies · Participant observation · Political science · Politics · Social movement · Social science · Sociology · Law · Privacy, Security, and Data Protection · Smart Cities and Technologies · Social Media and Politics

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