The Digital Subject: Power(s) of Digital Order, Counter-Conduct, and Neo-Luddism

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The article addresses the way the digital subject is constituted in contemporary digital capitalism while using Foucault’s theorisation of subjectivation, technologies of the self, and counter-conduct. Focus is initially given to the shaping behaviour of the digital order that normalises certain modes of existence and transforms subjects into calculable, controllable entities. At the same time, power relations in the digital order are inherently unstable, creating conditions for resistance. Building on Foucault’s concept of counter-conduct, the digital subject is argued to be neither completely autonomous nor completely determined. As a concrete articulation of counter-conduct on both the level of knowledge and level of material practices, Neo-luddism is critically interrogated, which we analyse as operating through refusal, resistance, and reimagination of technological arrangements within the digital order.