Algorithmic authority and epistemic disembodiment in digital cognitive capitalism

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.54871/cl4c10aa

Keywords:

cognitive capitalism, algorithmic authority, epistemic disembodiment, cognitive inequality, situated cognitive justice

Abstract

This article analyzes how artificial intelligence (AI), within the framework of digital cognitive capitalism, reconfigures the conditions of knowledge production and legitimation. From a feminist and decolonial critical perspective, it develops a conceptual analysis of AI as an epistemic infrastructure. As a result, it proposes the concept of algorithmic authority to account for an emerging form of legitimacy, and that of epistemic disembodiment to explain the systematic invisibilization of the material and situated conditions of cognition. It further examines how these dynamics are articulated with opacity, data extractivism, and cognitive inequality in Latin America. The article concludes that these processes reshape the criteria of knowledge validation.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Abbass, Hussein A. (2019). Social integration of artificial intelligence: functions, automation allocation logic and human-autonomy trust. Cognitive Computation, 11(2), 159-171. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12559-018-9619-0

Afroféminas (1 de abril de 2026) https://afrofeminas.com/

Beer, David (2019). The social power of algorithms. Londres: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351200677

Benjamin, Ruha (2019). Assessing risk, automating racism. Science, 366(6464), 421-422. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaz3873

Blondeau, Olivier et al. (2004). Capitalismo cognitivo, propiedad intelectual y creación colectiva. Madrid: Traficantes de sueños.

Burrell, Jenna (2016). How the machine ‘thinks’: Understanding opacity in machine learning algorithms. Big data & society, 3(1), 2053951715622512. https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951715622512

Burrell, Jenna y Fourcade, Marion (2021). The society of algorithms. Annual review of sociology, 47(1), 213-237. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-090820-020800

CENIA (1 de abril de 2026). https://cenia.cl

Correa L., Horacio (2025). Hacia una IA decolonial: marcos alternativos, resistencias y propuestas. Un estado de la cuestión. Revista Hipertextos,13(24), e106. https://doi.org/10.24215/23143924e106

Couldry, Nick y Mejias, Ulises A. (2019). Data colonialism: Rethinking big data’s relation to the contemporary subject. Television & new media, 20(4), 336-349. https://doi.org/10.14763/2019.2.1411

Crawford, Kate y Paglen, Trevor (2021). Excavating AI: The politics of images in machine learning training sets. Ai & Society, 36(4), 1105-1116. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-021-01162-8

Data Cívica (1 de abril de 2026). https://datacivica.org/

Dencik, Lina et al. (2019). Exploring data justice: Conceptions, applications and directions. Information, Communication & Society, 22(7), 873-881. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2019.1606268

D'ignazio, Catherine y Klein, Lauren F. (2023). Data feminism. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Espinosa-Miñoso, Yuderkys (2014). Una crítica descolonial a la epistemología feminista crítica. El cotidiano (184), 7-12.

Eubanks, Virginia (2018). Automating inequality: How high-tech tools profile, police, and punish the poor. Nueva York: St. Martin's Press.

Facchini, Alessandro et al. (2024, November). Algorithmic Authority & AI Influence in Decision Settings: Theories and Implications for Design. En Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction (pp. 472-474). https://doi.org/10.1145/3687272.3691363

Federici, Silvia (2016). Calibán y la bruja: mujeres, cuerpo y acumulación originaria. Quito: Editorial Abya-Yala.

Fraser, Nancy (2017). Feminism, capitalism and the cunning of history. En Shaw, Jo y Štiks, ByIgor (Eds.) Citizenship rights (pp. 393-413). Londres: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315260211

Fraser, Nancy (2023). Cannibal capitalism: How our system is devouring democracy, care, and the planet and what we can do about it. Nueva York: Verso books.

Fricker, Miranda (2007). Epistemic injustice: Power and the ethics of knowing. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198237907.001.0001

Gillespie, Tarleton (2010). The politics of ‘platforms’. New media & society, 12(3), 347-364. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444809342738

Gillespie, Tarleton (2014). The relevance of algorithms. En Gillespie, T., Boczkowski, P. J. y Foot, K. A. (Eds.), Media technologies: Essays on communication, materiality, and society (pp. 167-194). Cambridge: MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/9780262525374.001.0001

Grosfoguel, Ramón (2016). Del extractivismo económico al extractivismo epistémico y ontológico. Revista Internacional de Comunicación y Desarrollo (RICD), 1(4), 33-45.

Grosfoguel, Ramón (2018). Extractivismo epistémico: del robo económico al robo epistemológico. En Reyes Escutia, F. (Coord.), Construir un NosOtros con la Tierra, Voces latinoamericanas por la descolonización del pensamiento y la acción ambientales (17-36). Ciudad de México: Universidad de Ciencias y Artes de Chiapas e Itaca.

Haraway, Donna (1988). Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective. Feminist Studies, 14(3), 575-599. https://doi.org/10.2307/3178066

Harding, Sandra (1991). Whose science? Whose knowledge? Thinking from women’s lives. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Kitchin, Rob (2014). Big Data, new epistemologies and paradigm shifts. Big data & society, 1(1), 2053951714528481. https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951714528481

Lanoix, Monique (2013). Labor as embodied practice: The lessons of care work. Hypatia, 28(1), 85-100. https://doi.org/10.1111/hypa.12008

Lazzarato, Maurizio (1996) Immaterial Labour. En Hardt, M. and Virno, P. (Eds.) Radical Thought in Italy: A Potential Politics (pp.133-147). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Lucarelli, Stefano y Fumagalli, Andrea (2013). Basic income and productivity in cognitive capitalism. En Figart, D. y Marangos, J. (Eds.) Living Standards and Social Well-Being (pp. 71-92). Londres: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315873961

Lugones, María (2008). Colonialidad y género. Tabula rasa (9), 73-102.

Lupton, Deborah (2017). Feeling your data: Touch and making sense of personal digital data. New media & society, 19(10), 1599-1614. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444817717515

McRobbie, Angela (2011). Reflections on feminism, immaterial labour and the post-Fordist regime. New formations, 70, 60-76. https://doi.org/10.3898/NEWF.70.04.2010

Mignolo, Walter D. (2013). Introduction: Coloniality of power and de-colonial thinking. En Mignolo, W. D. y Escobar, A. (Eds.) Globalization and the decolonial option (pp. 1-21). Londres: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315868448

Moulier-Boutang, Yann. (2011). Cognitive capitalism. Nueva York: Polity.

Mundo Sur (1 de abril de 2026). https://mundosur.org/nawi-ia/

Pasquale, Frank (2015). The black box society: The secret algorithms that control money and information. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674736061

Peña, Paz y Varon, Joanna (2019). Consent to our data bodies: Lessons from feminist theories to enforce data protection. Coding Rights, 25. https://codingrights.org/docs/ConsentToOurDataBodies.pdf

Quijano, Aníbal (2001). Colonialidad del poder, globalización y democracia. Utopías, nuestra bandera: revista de debate político, 188, 97-123.

Ricaurte, Paola, Gómez-Cruz, Edgar y Siles, Ignacio (2024). Algorithmic governmentality in Latin America: Sociotechnical imaginaries, neocolonial soft power, and authoritarianism. Big data & society, 11(1), 20539517241229697. https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517241229697

Rodríguez, Óscar L. F. (2021). Planeación y evaluación desde una óptica decolonizadora: la relevancia de la gobernanza y soberanía de datos indígenas. En La evaluación de la gestión pública desde un enfoque decolonial: teorías, experiencias y aprendizajes (145-164). Tamaulipas: El Colegio de Tamaulipas-Red de Pensamiento Decolonial

Srnicek, Nick (2017). The challenges of platform capitalism: Understanding the logic of a new business model. Juncture, 23(4), 254-257. https://doi.org/10.1111/newe.12023

Ståhl, Tore, Sormunen, Eero y Mäkinen, Marita (2021). Epistemic beliefs and internet reliance–is algorithmic authority part of the picture?. Information and Learning Sciences, 122(11-12), 726-748. https://doi.org/10.1108/ILS-01-2021-0004

Terranova, Tiziana (2012). Free labor. En Scholz, T. (Ed.) Digital labor (pp. 33-57). Londres: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203145791

Tubaro, Paola (2020). Whose intelligence is artificial intelligence?. Global Dialogue, 38-39. https://hal.science/hal-03029735v1

Vercellone, Carlo (2016). Capitalismo cognitivo y economía del conocimiento. Una perspectiva histórica y teórica. En Francisco Sierra Caballero y Francesco Maniglio (coords.) Capitalismo financiero y comunicación (pp. 17-50). Quito: Ciespal.

Vercellone, Carlo y Cardoso, Pablo (2016). Nueva división internacional del trabajo, capitalismo cognitivo y desarrollo en América Latina. Chasqui. Revista Latinoamericana de Comunicación, (133), 37-59. https://doi.org/10.16921/chasqui.v0i133.2941

Walter, Maggie, y Carroll, Stephanie R. (2020). Indigenous data sovereignty, governance and the link to Indigenous policy. En Walter, M., Kukutai, T., Russo Carroll, S. y Rodriguez-Lonebear, D. (Eds.) Indigenous data sovereignty and policy (pp. 1-20). Londres: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429273957

Zuboff, Shoshana. (2019). Surveillance Capitalism and the Challenge of Collective Action. New Labor Forum, 28(1), 10-29. https://doi.org/10.1177/1095796018819461

Published

2026-06-29

How to Cite

Zárate Rochín, A. M. (2026). Algorithmic authority and epistemic disembodiment in digital cognitive capitalism. Tramas Y Redes, (10), 25–43. https://doi.org/10.54871/cl4c10aa

Issue

Section

Dossier