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Abstract

This article explores “the commoning of critical labour knowledge“ – the co-sharing of resources to produce, circulate, and practice forms of knowledge generated with, by, and for workers, in opposition to dominant managerial and/or state technocratic frameworks – including through the use of digital media. Drawing on an auto-ethnographic reflection of a collaborative praxis between a university-based research centre and a labour knowledge hub, both based in Indonesia, we argue that this practice is imbued with internal contradictions. The praxis does open possibilities for solidarity, redistribution, and collective critical knowledge-making. However, it is constrained by capitalist logics of algorithmic surveillance, intertwined with neoliberal audit regimes; both contributing to subordinating the labour process of knowledge production. Under these circumstances, the digital mediation of commoning unfold through the strategic appropriation of capitalist digital infrastructures, sustained by its user coordinated material practices of gamifying digital platform features and donor vernaculars. Though constrained by platform capitalism and donor frameworks, these practices do serve as an everyday praxis that challenges dominant knowledge systems, albeit in limited ways.

Bahasa Abstract

Artikel ini mengeksplorasi praktik ‘commoning pengetahuan kritis tentang kerja’ — praktik berbagi sumber daya secara kolektif untuk menghasilkan, menyebarkan, dan mempraktikkan bentuk-bentuk pengetahuan yang dihasilkan bersama, oleh, dan untuk pekerja, sering kali sebagai oposisi terhadap kerangka manajerial atau teknokratis negara yang dominan — termasuk melalui penggunaan media sosial. Berdasarkan refleksi autoenografi terhadap kolaborasi praxis antara pusat penelitian di kampus dan pusat pengetahuan perburuhan, keduanya berbasis di Indonesia, kami berargumen bahwa praktik ini memiliki kontradiksi internal. Praktik ini membuka kemungkinan bagi solidaritas, redistribusi, dan produksi pengetahuan kolektif. Meskipun demikian, ia juga dibatasi oleh logika kapitalis, berupa pengawasan algoritmik yang berkelindan dengan rezim audit neoliberal; bersama-sama, keduanya mengkondisikan subordinasi proses kerja produksi pengetahuan pada imperatif pasar. Dalam situasi demikian, mediasi digital terhadap commoning dengan demikian berlangsung melalui apropriasi strategis terhadap infrastruktur digital kapitalis, yang dijalankan melalui praktik material terkoordinasi oleh para pengguna dalam menggubah (gamifying) bahasa donor dan fitur-fitur platform digital. Meskipun dibatasi oleh platform korporasi dan kerangka donor, praktik tersebut berfungsi sebagai praksis sehari-hari yang menantang sistem pengetahuan dominan, meski secara terbatas.

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