Beyond platform capitalism: critical perspectives on Facebook markets from Melanesia

Abstract

This article argues for a need to move beyond studies of platform capitalism and inter-capitalist struggles to also account for inter-economic struggles, the platformization of longstanding primarily non-capitalist societies, the same kind of societies that have conceptually inspired discussions of platforms as hi-tech gift economies. Based on longitudinal ethnographic fieldwork on digital transformations among the horticulturalist Lau of Malaita, Solomon Islands, we analyse horticulturalist adoptions and adaptations of Facebook. Specifically, we consider how informal bush markets are being digitized through online Buy and Sell groups. We show how Solomon Islanders use Buy and Sell Facebook groups to continue moral economic practices that emphasize the accumulation of wealth not in a capitalist, but in a relational sense, where economic activity primarily serves the creation and affirmation of relationships. Our findings, thus, challenge universalizing claims about the nature of platforms as one that is necessarily about the commodification, in a capitalist sense, of all social relations. Simultaneously, they call for more research on experiences of platformization at the margins of global capitalism and the ways in which not-so-average users are making platforms their own.

Editorial introduction: Towards a machinic anthropology

“…Yet, while recent ethnographic work on vernacular data practices (e.g. Hobbis and Hobbis, 2022) offers a welcome reality-check to the alarmism of much critical work on the political economy of digital data, the anthropology 'of data' literature is still dominated by 'a distant, neutral gaze' (Paff, 2022) posited to be at safe distance from the big data reality studied. Crucially, this sense of epistemological-cum-ethical superiority and distance extends to the algorithms and other computational techniques deployed by the data scientists themselves.…”

Rural media studies: making the case for a new subfield

“…Oceanic case studies essentially challenge media studies to interrogate the complexities of contemporary mediascapes. They question 'common sense' assumptions in media research, such as the dominance of capitalist tendencies in digital economies (Hobbis and Hobbis, 2022a). They also call for deeper scrutiny of key concepts in media studies, be it the digital gift economy or even cancel culture and its links with the notion of 'taboo' that spread from the Pacific to Euro-American lifeworlds alongside the voyages of Captain Cook.…”