Critical Pedagogy as a Practice of Resistance to Algorithms

Abstract

Today using the Internet implies primarily using digital platforms, that actively participate in the co-construction of social life. In this scenario, users have often been depicted as powerless, subjected to exploitative commercial practices, and as having internalized their condition of surveilled and datafied individuals. However, little attention has been paid to how individuals make sense of algorithms in their everyday life and how exert their agency while using platforms. Furthermore, little is known regarding how researchers can actively elicit critical reflections regarding structures of datafication, thereby helping individuals increase their awareness and data literacy. This paper contends that auto-ethnographic diaries, elaborated following a critical pedagogical approach, can be valuable to investigate user practices and how algorithms are enacted in everyday life by those practices. Furthermore, a critical pedagogy approach can raise awareness among individuals regarding processes of pervasive datafication and surveillance, thereby being a way to redistribute social value to the public while doing social research and a practice of independence and resistance to algorithmic surveillance.