Land, Freedom, and Diversity: Metaphors to the Digital World?

Abstract

We can formulate metaphors about the complex, dynamic, and ever-expanding social media environment, as Castells did in his 2003 work The Internet Galaxy. However, with its new ways of use — even with the expansion of access to a broader population —- we may face a possible contradiction: the potential infinite galaxy of the Internet would be ever so limited into a closed world. Another possible metaphor that will be upheld throughout this article is the notion of the land as lively, dynamic, complex, and full of live entities, similar to Yanomami's way of thinking (Kopenawa & Albert, 2019). Such portrayal of land as a metaphor may also apply as an example of what the Internet can (or could have) been in juxtaposition to the white man’s impoverished vision of the land (Kopenawa & Albert, 2019) — or the westernized, eurocentric —, who sees it as something sterile or just as a resource for profit, focused in the monoculture of the land, in other words, the impoverishment of the diversity of life (Shiva, 2003). In this sense, this article brings together the thoughts of different Global South authors regarding a more complex, dynamic, and lively conception of the land. It demonstrates how this framework may constitute a theoretical weapon when considering the Internet, its tensions, and possible outcomes, having the Brazilian surroundings as a departure point. In light of the above, we may question: how far can the metaphor of social media as the land, this fertile, complex, blossoming, and diverse soil (Kopenawa & Albert, 2019), contribute to the debate regarding digital networks and their potential? Moreover, what are the limitations that the monoculture of uses may develop?