From Reputational Value to Insurgent Value: Social Movements and Technological Reappropriation in the Age of Platforms

Abstract del seminario
This seminar examines how urban social movements respond to the platformization of labor and the expansion of algorithmic governance within the context of platform capitalism. Drawing on an ongoing case study of the Technology Hub of the Homeless Workers’ Movement (MTST), a Brazilian urban social movement based in São Paulo, the presentation analyzes how grassroots actors engage in processes of technological reappropriation while developing technopolitical strategies grounded in collective organization. The research highlights the construction of urban digital commons and the moral economies that emerge within these contexts as central elements in sustaining practices of popular digital sovereignty. The central argument is that initiatives such as the NT-MTST seek to transform reputational value, typically captured and monetized by platforms, into insurgent value rooted in shared infrastructures, political education, and collective control over digital tools. The seminar reflects on the possibilities and structural limits of building popular digital sovereignty within contemporary platform capitalism.