Platform Colonialism: The Lower Circuit at the Center of Capitalist Accumulation

Abstract

The study seeks to analyze how the self-employed are inserted in the context of financialization and how this insertion enables financial capital accumulation. We initially adopted the concept of neoliberal rationality of Dardot and Laval as our main theoretical lens. However, our immersion in the research field showed us the value of integrating Latin American authors. Through the story of a self- employed couple in the confection industry, and applying hermeneutic analysis, our results make two main contributions. First, we build a new concept – that we call platform colonialism – that unveils the mechanisms by which the work of micro-entrepreneurs constitutes a source of accumulation for financial capital. Although this concept emerged from a Latin America context, their transferability to other ‘colonized’ contexts is plausible and open to future investigation. Second, we argue that when trying to understand a social phenomenon taking place in a peripheral territory, it is worth to also mobilize local theories, instead of mechanically just borrowing Western-based ones, therefore nourishing the increasing movement of ‘decolonizing’ our minds. Additionally, our study illustrates the use of critical hermeneutics, showing its potential to increase our ability to deepen understand the interplay of different trajectories, from life stories to historical accounts.