DOE · Digitizing Other Economies: A Comparative Approach

How do longstanding, primarily non-industrial, non-capitalist societies adopt and adapt digital technologies in their daily practices and systems of values? Classical anthropological theory once arranged basic economic types on an evolutionary ladder ranging from hunter-gatherers, horticulturalists, pastoralists, and agriculturalists to industrialists. Today, the existence of these economies other than industrialism are correctly approached not as anachronisms but as contemporaneous to (post-)industrial life. Still, research on digitization has largely taken place in (post-) industrial contexts, meaning we know next to nothing about how different types of longstanding economies adopt and adapt digital technologies. At the same time, researchers have stipulated that digitization threatens global economic diversity. By comparing digitization to processes of colonization, they have argued that digital technologies facilitate assimilation into (post-)industrial economic systems and their often capitalist values by virtue of their technological design. This project empirically investigates these claims through in-depth ethnographic research among hunter-gatherers (Brazilian Amazon), pastoralists (Kyrgyz Republic), horticulturalists (Solomon Islands) and indigenous agriculturalists (India) who have long resisted assimilation into industrial-capitalism. Additional ethnological comparison of the four sites will offer unique macro-level insights into the possibilities for economic diversity in the digital age. Finally, the project advances a novel theoretical and methodological approach that advances both ethnographic research and ethnological comparison. This approach recognizes the significance of both technological design and contextual adaptations and provides tools for new research agendas not just on digital industrial-capitalism but on diverse economic systems and values.