Digital dialectics: culture, labor, and power in informational capitalism

Based on extant literature on call centers and my own research in digitization in Mexico and Brazil, in this paper I address the relations between culture, labor, and digital technology in informational capitalism. Drawing on media theory and the anthropological work of Ana Tsing and Sidney Mintz, a...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Dialectical anthropology 2023-09, Vol.47 (3), p.275-293
Main Author: Alarcón-Medina, Rafael
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Algorithms
Anthropology
Call centers
Capitalism
Culture
Dialectics
Digital divide
Digital technology
Digitization
Labor
Logic
On call
Original Research
Social networks
Social Sciences
Subordination
Technology
Technology and civilization
Telephones
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Based on extant literature on call centers and my own research in digitization in Mexico and Brazil, in this paper I address the relations between culture, labor, and digital technology in informational capitalism. Drawing on media theory and the anthropological work of Ana Tsing and Sidney Mintz, among others, I propose a conceptual framework on labor’s digital dialectics, within which the contradictions between algorithmic logic and the cultural layer occur. I argue that current technological subordination is based on a set of frictions and tensions that intensificate the contradiction between technology and culture as subordinated digitization while at the same time extensificate capitalistic informatization as digital subordination.
ISSN:0304-4092
1573-0786
DOI:10.1007/s10624-023-09691-y