Distinction and alternative tech: Exploring the techno-critical disposition

Abstract

How should we understand alternative social media and open-source technologies that seek to challenge the dominance of Big Tech? Are these ethical substitutes for monopolistic platforms and technological infrastructures, or “alternative” in the sense we might talk of alternative forms of culture? Here we offer new perspective on these questions by conceptualizing alternative tech through Bourdieu’s theories of cultural production and distinctive consumption. Building on the work of Holm, Coleman and others, we explore the “techno-critical disposition” through a case study of A Traversal Network of Feminist Servers (ATNOFS), arguing this is manifested primarily as “critical craftiness,” or hacker aesthetics in a critical register. Finally, we consider how ATNOFS represents a “distinctive” path to the wider adoption of alternative platforms, as well as how the techno-critical disposition may be reconfiguring legitimacy in the broader field of technology production.