Abstract
This article contributes to a praxis of critical hope by combining recent critical political economic (CPE) analyses of postdigital education with the inspiring experimental practices emerging from the new field of critical digital pedagogy (CDP). I argue that CDP offers hope to educators looking for practical ways beyond capitalist exploitation and alienation, but lacks the analytical foundations needed to contribute to the liberation of our ‘general intellect.’ I highlight the emergence of the Free/Libre Open-Source Software (FLOSS) movement and ‘hacker class’ as exemplars of a more dialectically conscious praxis. Conversely, I encourage CPE scholars of the postdigital to contribute to developing both intellectual tools for understanding our position within capitalism and practical tools for hacking for our liberation. Throughout the article, I use a historical materialist lens to emphasise that we can identify the conditions of and elaborate the strategies for achieving our emancipation in the dialectic of the historically specific contradictions generated by specific class antagonisms. It is in this dialectic that we find a critical hope.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Ben Fowkes’ translation in the Penguin edition reads ‘value in process’ (Marx 1992a). Here, to express the dynamism I seek to emphasise, I select the translation ‘value in motion’ offered on www.marxists.org.
See http://hybridpedagogy.org/ for the online home of the Critical Digital Pedagogy community.
Also known as Free Software Movement (FSM) or Free and Open-Source Software Movement (FOSSM).
Connectivism and Connective Knowledge run by Stephen Downes and George Siemens at University of Manitoba. See https://sites.google.com/site/themoocguide/3-cck08%2D%2D-the-distributed-course.
Run by Ray Shraeder and then Jeff Lebow of Busan University. See https://sites.google.com/site/themoocguide/12-edumooc%2D%2D-extending-a-mooc.
Digital Storytelling run by no one, but convened by Jim Groom and Martha Burtis at University of Mary Washington. See http://ds106.us/about/.
See 'Your Unguided tour of Rhizo14' by Dave Cormier at http://davecormier.com/edblog/2014/01/12/your-unguided-tour-of-rhizo14/.
See 'Trying to write Rhizomatic Learning in 300 words' by Dave Cormierat http://davecormier.com/edblog/2012/12/13/trying-to-write-rhizomatic-learning-in-300-words/.
See 'Rhizomatic Learning – The community is the curriculum' at https://courses.p2pu.org/en/courses/882/rhizomatic-learning-the-community-is-the-curriculum/.
I am part of a UK-based group which meets both online and face-to-face and works to explore the nature and heal the wounds of intergenerational violence and trauma. Over the past two years, we have worked at endlessly surprising depths even online. See https://pocketproject.org/.
References
Adorno, T., & Horkheimer, M. (1997). Dialectic of enlightenment. London: Verso.
Amsler, S. (2011). Strivings towards a politics of possibility. Graduate Journal of Social Science, 8(1), 83–103.
Amsler, S. (2015). The Education of Radical Democracy. London: Routledge.
Analogue University (2017). Control, resistance, and the ‘data university’: towards a third wave critique.https://antipodefoundation.org/2017/03/31/control-resistance-and-the-data-university/. Accessed 1 June 2019.
Bali, M., Honeychurch, S., Hamon, K., Hogue, R. J., Koutropoulos, A., Johnson, S., Leunissen, R., & Singh, L. (2016). What is it like to learn and participate in Rhizomatic MOOCs? A collaborative autoethnography of #RHIZO14. Current Issues in Emerging eLearning, 3(1), 41–59.
Bauwens, M. (2009). The emergence of open design and open manufacturing. We-Magazine. https://snuproject.wordpress.com/2011/12/17/the-emergence-of-open-design-and-open-manufacturing-we_magazine/. Accessed 1 June 2019.
Benkler, Y. (2006). The wealth of networks: How social production transforms markets and freedom. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press.
Bloch, E. (1995). The principle of Hope, Volume 1. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Cleaver, H. (1992). The inversion of class perspective in Marxian theory: from valorisation to self-valorisation. In W. Bonefeld, R. Gunn, & K. Psychopedis (Eds.), Open Marxism (Theory and practice) (Vol. 2, pp. 106–144). London: Pluto Press.
Cormier, D., Jandrić, P., Childs, M., Hall, R., White, D., Phipps, L., Truelove, I., Hayes, S., & Fawns, T. (2019). Ten years of the postdigital in the 52 Group: reflections and developments 2009–2019. Postdigital Science and Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-019-00049-8.
Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987). A thousand plateaus. Translated by Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Derk, I. (2014). Pedagogy, prophecy, and disruption, Hybrid Pedagogy, 28 September. http://hybridpedagogy.org/pedagogy-prophecy-disruption/. Accessed 1 June 2019.
Dyer-Witheford, N. (2010). Digital labour, species-becoming and the global worker. Ephemera, 10(3–4), 484–503.
Feenberg, A. (1999). Questioning technology. London: Routledge.
Foucault, M. (2008). The birth of biopolitics: lectures at the College de France, 1978–9. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Free Software Foundation (2005). Overview of the GNU System. https://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-history.en.html. Accessed 1 June 2019.
Freire, P. (1992). Pedagogy of hope. New York: Continuum.
Fuchs, C. (2014). Karl Marx and the study of media and culture today. Culture Unbound: Journal of Current Cultural Research, 6(3), 39–76.
Fuchs, C. (2016). Henryk Grossmann 2.0: a critique of Paul Mason’s book “PostCapitalism: a guide to our future” . tripleC. Communication, Capitalism & Critique, 14(1), 232–243. https://doi.org/10.31269/triplec.v14i1.757.
Fuchs, C., & Sandoval, M. (2014). Digital workers of the world unite! A framework for critically theorising and analysing digital labour. tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique, 12 (2), 486–563. https://doi.org/10.31269/triplec.v12i2.549.
Fuchs, C., & Sevignani, S. (2013). What is digital labour? What is digital work? What’s their difference? And why do these questions matter for understanding social media? tripleC: Communication. Capitalism & Critique, 11(2), 237–293. https://doi.org/10.31269/triplec.v11i2.461.
Fuller, S., & Jandrić, P. (2019). The postdigital human: e the history of the future. Postdigital Science and Education, 1(1), 190–217. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-018-0003-x.
Haggard, S. (2013). The maturing of the MOOC. BIS Research Paper Number 130. London: Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. http://www.obhe.ac.uk/documents/download?id=933. Accessed 1 June 2019.
Hall, R. (2014). On the abolition of academic labour: The relationship between intellectual workers and mass intellectuality. tripleC: Communication, Capitalism and Critique, 12(2), 822–837. https://doi.org/10.31269/triplec.v12i2.597.
Hall, R. (2015). For a political economy of massive open online courses. Learning, Media and Technology, 40(3), 265–286. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2015.1015545.
Hall, R. (2016). Technology-enhanced learning and co-operative practice against the neoliberal university. Interactive Learning Environments, 24(5), 1004–1015. https://doi.org/10.1080/10494820.2015.1128214.
Hall, R., & Stahl, B. (2013). Against commodification: the university, cognitive capitalism and emergent technologies. In C. Fuchs & V. Mosco (Eds.), Marx and the political economy of the media. Brill: Leiden.
Hall, R., & Winn, J. (Eds.). (2017). Mass intellectuality and democratic leadership in higher education. London: Bloomsbury.
Harney, S., & Moten, F. (1999). The academic speed-up. Workplace: a journal for academic labor, 4, 23–28.
Jandrić, P. (2017). Learning in the age of digital reason. Rotterdam: Sense.
Jandrić, P., Knox, J., Besley, T., Ryberg, T., Suoranta, J., & Hayes, S. (2018). Postdigital science and education. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 50(10), 893–899. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2018.1454000.
Kelty, C. M. (2006). Geeks, social imaginaries, and recursive publics. Cultural Anthropology, 20, 185–214.
Keynes, J. M. (2009). Essays In Persuasion. New York: Classic House.
Kleiner, D. (2010). The Telekommunist manifesto. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures.
Knox, J. (2019). What does the ‘postdigital’ mean for education? Three critical perspectives on the digital, with implications for educational research and practice. Postdigital Science and Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-019-00045-y.
Kostakis, V., & Bauwens, M. (2014). Network society and future scenarios for a collaborative economy. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Lazarus, J. (2018). Beyond the neo-liberal university: the R.O.S.I. website project and the liberation of our general intellect. Critical Education, 9(9), 1–25. https://doi.org/10.14288/ce.v9i9.186367.
Lazzarato, M. (1996). Immaterial labour. In P. Virno & M. Hardt (Eds.), Radical thought in Italy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Lordon, F. (2014). Willing slaves of capital: Spinoza and Marx on desire. London: Verso.
Mackness, J., & Bell, F. (2015). Rhizo14: a rhizomatic learning cMOOC in sunlight and in shade. Open Praxis, 7(1), 25–38.
Marx, K. (1969). Theses On Feuerbach. Moscow: Progress.
Marx, K. (1990). Capital, volume 1: a critique of political economy. London: Penguin.
Marx, K. (1992a). Capital, volume 2: a critique of political economy. London: Penguin.
Marx, K. (1992b). Economic and philosophical manuscripts. In K. Marx (Ed.), Early Writings. London: Penguin.
Marx, K. (1993). Grundrisse: outline of the critique of political economy. London: Penguin.
Marx, K., & Engels, F. (2002). The communist manifesto. London: Penguin.
Moore, P. (2011). Subjectivity in the ecologies of peer to peer production. The Fibreculture Journal, 17, 1443–1449.
Moore, P., & Robinson, A. (2016). The quantified self: what counts in the neoliberal workplace? New Media & Society, 18(11), 2774–2792. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444815604328.
Morris, S. M., & Stommel, J. (2013). A bill of rights and principles for learning in the digital age. https://blog.udacity.com/2013/01/a-bill-of-rights-and-principles-for.html. Accessed 1 June 2019.
Neary, M. (2012). Beyond teaching in public: the university as a form of social knowing. In M. Neary, H. Stevenson, & L. Bell (Eds.), Towards teaching in public: reshaping the modern university. London: Continuum.
Neary, M. (2016). Student as producer: the struggle for the idea of the university. Other Education: The Journal of Educational Alternatives, 5(1), 89–94.
Newfield, C. (2010). The structure and silence of the cognitariat. Eurozine, 5 February. https://www.eurozine.com/the-structure-and-silence-of-the-cognitariat/. Accessed 1 June 2019.
Peters, M., & Besley, T. (2019). Critical philosophy of the postdigital. Postdigital Science and Education, 1(1), 29–42. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-018-0004-9.
Postone, M. (1993). Time, labour and social domination: a reinterpretation of Marx’s critical theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Regalado, A., & Leber, J. (2013). Intel fuels a rebellion around your data. MIT Technology Review, 20 May. http://www.technologyreview.com/news/514386/intel-fuels-a-rebellion-around-your-data/#ixzz2UfZVIJFE. Accessed 1 June 2019.
Scharmer, O. (2016a). MITx u.Lab: education as activating social fields Huffington Post, 22 December. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mitx-ulab-education-as-ac_b_8863806. Accessed 1 June 2019.
Scharmer, O. (2016b). Theory U: leading from the future as it emerges. Oakland, CA: Berett-Koehler.
Scharmer, O., & Kaufer, K. (2013). Leading from the emerging future: from ego-system to eco-system economies. Oakland, CA: Berret-Koehler.
Smythe, D. (2006). On the audience commodity and its work. In M. G. Durham & D. M. Kellner (Eds.), Media and cultural studies: keyworks. Oxford: Blackwell.
Stiegler, B. (2010). Taking care of youth and the generations. Redwood City, CA: Stanford University Press.
Stiegler, B. (2016). Automatic society, volume 1: the future of work. Translated by D. Ross. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Stommel, J. (2013). Decoding digital pedagogy, Pt. 2: (Un)Mapping the Terrain. Hybrid Pedagogy, 5 March. http://hybridpedagogy.org/decoding-digital-pedagogy-pt-2-unmapping-the-terrain/. Accessed 1 June 2019.
Stommel, J. (2014). Critical digital pedagogy: a definition. Hybrid Pedagogy, 18 November. http://hybridpedagogy.org/critical-digital-pedagogy-definition/. Accessed 1 June 2019.
Tiqqun. (2001). The cybernetic hypothesis. https://cybernet.jottit.com/. Accessed 1 June 2019.
Universities and Colleges Union (UCU). (2016). UCU Workload Survey 2016. https://www.ucu.org.uk/media/8196/Executive-summary-Workload-is-an-education-issue-UCU-workload-survey-report-2016/pdf/ucu_workloadsurvey_summary_jun16.pdf. Accessed 1 June 2019.
Virno, P. (2001). General intellect. In A. Zanini & U. Fadini (Eds.), Lessico Postfordista. Feltrinelli: Milan.
Wark, M. (2004). A hacker manifesto. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Watters, A. (2013). The education apocalypse. http://hackeducation.com/2013/11/07/the-education-apocalypse. Accessed 1 June 2019.
Williams, R. (1976). Keywords: a vocabulary of culture and society. London: Fontana Press.
Winn, J. (2015a). The co-operative university: labour, property and pedagogy. Power and Education, 7(1), 39–55. https://doi.org/10.1177/1757743814567386.
Winn, J. (2015b). Writing about academic labour. Workplace: a journal for academic labor, 25, 1–15.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Lazarus, J. Hacking the MOOC: Towards a Postdigital Pedagogy of Critical Hope. Postdigit Sci Educ 1, 391–412 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-019-00063-w
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-019-00063-w