Capitalism of infrastructures and connectivity. Proposals for a critical sociology of the «world at home»
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Abstract
The aim of this article is to make a first survey of what is here identified as infrastructures’ capitalism. In fact, contemporary capitalism is characterized by a growing synchronization between the infrastructures of things and those of experience. In this sense, the analysis tries to focus on some of the most relevant aspects of the complex social organization process of connectivity. This social organization is also related to the socio-reproductive contradiction that structurally characterizes capitalism and with its dramatic contemporary extension in terms of what is thematized with the concept of Anthropocene. In this historical phase, connectivity is interpreted and put to work through the frame of a social imaginary that has significant social, cultural, political and ecological implications, namely the imaginary of the «world at home». In the light of this reading, the hypothesis of a research site is put forward, which will take up and reinterpret the perspective of Kulturkritik in relation to infrastructure capitalism.
Keywords
- infrastructures
- capitalism
- cionnectivity
- socio-reproductive contradiction
- Kulturkritik