Subjectivity in the Ecologies of P2P Production

Scholars of media ecology, and what Fuller has called ‘media ecologies’ (2005), are interested in how real social change is possible, and in fact necessary, in the era of neoliberal takeups of digital media. By questioning hierarchical formations in the arrangements of lives, production and the lines of force for interactivity, which have historically been uni-directional and fundamentally restricting, the peer to peer (P2P) production movement is an example of the type of media ecology that promises ‘deep’ social, as well as mental, and environmental (in the sense of places of work and production), change. Do the networked commons emerging from P2P production, founded in the free software and hardware arena, and the ecologies of productive and artistic cooperation therein pose a resilient threat to capitalism, from within capitalism?