THE COUNTERMOVEMENT IN THE DIGITAL ECONOMY: THE TRAVEL SECTOR MIDWAY BETWEEN PLATFORM COOPERATIVISM AND PLATFORM SUBSTANTIVISM

Abstract

Bolstered by powerful network effects, some platforms enjoy a quasi-monopolistic position and threaten individual freedoms. This research aims to observe the alternatives to these merchant platforms with the emergence of digital platforms in the countermovement and the conditions for their sustainable integration in the economic landscape. The paper presents and analyses two field cases and enables to see how two recognised forms critical of capitalism – the social economy and the solidarity economy – were able to be translated in the digital world. This takes concrete form in the expression of a twofold critique: the first shows the opposition to a relationship of domination stemming from the instrumentation of a market logic; the second, in the current context of acceleration and reification, rests on a renewed attention to the world, challenges the place and role of digital technologies, and gives a central place on the platform to residents, citizen movements, local production and currencies, cultural rights and the non-humans.