Imagining the commoning library: alter-neoliberal pedagogy in informational capitalism

Soudias, Dimitris ORCID: 0000-0002-0568-2560 (2021) Imagining the commoning library: alter-neoliberal pedagogy in informational capitalism. Journal of Digital Social Research, 3 (1). 39 - 59. ISSN 2003-1998

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Abstract

The ascent of neoliberalism and informational capitalism has been largely successful in privatizing and re-regulating state-subject-market relations in ways that treat them “as if” they are a market situation. Here, we observe both the increasing commodification of digital forms of knowledge, as well as the commodification of the access to this knowledge. As predominantly non-commercial spaces, libraries serve the vital function of deflecting these developments. In this article, I argue for going one step further and imagining libraries as institutionalized and pedagogical spaces that can negotiate and transgress their institutional limits vis-à-vis public and private resources, discourses, policies, and technologies for the purpose of furthering the commons. In so doing, libraries serve as alter-neoliberal pedagogies, which democratize the construction and deconstruction of knowledge, as well as the access to them. Here, alternative literacies, ways of learning, and ways of being can be prefigured in practice. In imagining these conceptual potentialities of academic and public libraries, this article sets forth an initial agenda toward the commoning library.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://jdsr.se/ojs/index.php/jdsr/index
Additional Information:	© 2021 The Author
Divisions:	European Institute
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HM Sociology J Political Science > JC Political theory Z Bibliography. Library Science. Information Resources > Z665 Library Science. Information Science
Date Deposited:	11 Mar 2021 11:00
Last Modified:	15 Sep 2023 16:44
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/108993

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