From Neoliberalizing Research to
						Researching Neoliberalism: STS, Rentiership and the Emergence of
						Commons 2.0

Birch, Kean; Tyfield, David; Chiappetta, Margaret

doi:10.4135/9781526416001.n45

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In relation to knowledge, intangible assets-like IPRs-are often organized and governed as monopoly assets in which legal restrictions (e.g., licensing rights) inhibit the use, replication, and imitation of the underlying knowledge; as such, rentiership involves the organization of limits and exclusions on the use of a resource or its copies (Zeller 2008;May 2010;Frase 2016). This is a crucial part of assetization because knowledge can only be turned into an intangible asset through its identification and classification as a resource, which means finding ways to extract it from the freely and openly accessible knowledge "commons" (Birch et al 2018).…”

Section: Turning Things Into Assetsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In relation to knowledge, intangible assets—like IPRs—are often organized and governed as monopoly assets in which legal restrictions (e.g., licensing rights) inhibit the use, replication, and imitation of the underlying knowledge; as such, rentiership involves the organization of limits and exclusions on the use of a resource or its copies (Zeller 2008; May 2010; Frase 2016). This is a crucial part of assetization because knowledge can only be turned into an intangible asset through its identification and classification as a resource, which means finding ways to extract it from the freely and openly accessible knowledge “commons” (Birch et al 2018). According to Frase (2016), for example, a key defining feature of intangible assets (e.g., music or film copyright) is the fact that exclusion and use rights are combined with follow-through rights that are extended to the sale of their copies (e.g., CD or DVD), thereby reinforcing monopolies despite the proliferation of copies.…”

Section: Toward a Theory Of Rentiership For Technoscientific Capitalismmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Technoscience Rent: Toward a Theory of Rentiership for Technoscientific Capitalism

Birch

2019

Science, Technology, & Human Values

Self Cite

166

169

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Contemporary, technoscientific capitalism is characterized by the (re)configuration of a range of “things” (e.g., infrastructure, data, knowledge, bodies) as assets or capitalized property. Accumulation strategies have changed as a result of this assetization process. Rather than entrepreneurial strategies based on commodity production, technoscientific capitalism is increasingly underpinned by rentiership or the appropriation of value through ownership and control rights (e.g., intellectual property [IP]), monopoly conditions, and regulatory or market devices and practices (e.g., investment dispute courts, exclusivity agreements). While rentiership is often presented as a negative phenomenon (e.g., distorting markets, unearned income) in both neoclassical and Marxist political economy literatures—and much in between—in this paper, I conceptualize rentiership as a technoeconomic practice and process framed by insights from science and technology studies (STS). So, rather than a problematic “side effect” of capitalism, the concept of rentiership enables us to understand how different forms of value extraction constitute, and are constituted by, different forms of technoscience. This allows STS to contribute a distinctive analytical approach to ongoing debates in political economy about economic rents and rent-seeking.

show abstract

Section: Turning Things Into Assetsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Toward a Theory Of Rentiership For Technoscientific Capitalismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Technoscience Rent: Toward a Theory of Rentiership for Technoscientific Capitalism

Birch

2019

Science, Technology, & Human Values

Self Cite

166

169

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Research and innovation policy as the commercialization of technoscience Godin (2015) argues that innovation studies and policies are underpinned by the assumption that technological innovation is driven by the (usually) private commercialization of technological developments, focused almost exclusively on private firms. In analytical, empirical, and policy terms, this dominant innovation perspective is strongly IP-intensive with the expectation that new "disruptive" technologies do and will continue to drive future financial success and social progress through private, market-based processes (Mirowski 2011; Pfotenhauer and Juhl 2017;Birch, Tyfield, and Chiapetta 2018). As a longstanding expectation, this has resulted in the creation and fortification of IP monopolies, particularly in the context of emerging technologiesincluding the aggregation and analysis of personal datagoing back to at least the 1980s (Heller 2008;Hope 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The problem of innovation in technoscientific capitalism: data rentiership and the policy implications of turning personal digital data into a private asset

2020

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A spate of recent scandals concerning personal digital data illustrates the extent to which innovation and finance are thoroughly entangled with one another. The innovation-finance nexus is an example of an emerging dynamic in technoscientific capitalism in which innovation is increasingly driven by the pursuit of "economic rents". Unlike innovation that delivers new products, services, and markets, innovation as rentiership is defined by the extraction and capture of value through different modes of ownership and control over resources and assets. This shift towards rentiership is evident in the transformation of personal digital data into a private asset. In light of this assetization, it is necessary to unpack how innovation itself might be a problem, rather than a solution to a range of global challenges. Our aim in this paper is to conceptualize this relationship between innovation, finance, and data rentiership, and examine the policy implications of this pursuit of economic rents as a deliberate research and innovation strategy in datadriven technology sectors.

show abstract

The promise of precision: datafication in medicine, agriculture and education

2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper analyses how precision has become a ubiquitous prefix in medicine, agriculture and education. The accompanying imagination in each of these domains is that 'data' will enable greater predictive accuracy through new sensors and interfaces.In this paper, we aim to provide insights regarding the ways in which precision assemblages function to augment and extend existing knowledge and data infrastructures, whilst also being underpinned by the anticipatory promise of the ubiquity of digital and sensing technologies. We argue that precision is marked by new data production and aggregation frameworks to measure and intervene. At the same time, precision draws on -and augments -established clinical, agricultural and educational subjectivities in ways that depict new logics of patient, student and environmental care. As we outline below, the threshold of the shift to precision is articulated and institutionalized at different points in each field we analyze in the subsequent sections of this paper -namely medicine, agriculture and education. This suggests that precision should be understood as an unevenly realized moment in policy development, rather than as simply produced through processes of technological change.

show abstract

From Neoliberalizing Research to Researching Neoliberalism: STS, Rentiership and the Emergence of Commons 2.0

Cited by 4 publications

References 0 publications

Technoscience Rent: Toward a Theory of Rentiership for Technoscientific Capitalism

Technoscience Rent: Toward a Theory of Rentiership for Technoscientific Capitalism

The problem of innovation in technoscientific capitalism: data rentiership and the policy implications of turning personal digital data into a private asset

The promise of precision: datafication in medicine, agriculture and education

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About