The (Anti)Social Life of a Digital Journal in the Era of Global Info-Capitalism

By reflecting on running the open-access online “race” journal darkmatter, the author examines the crisis of academic journal publishing. This crisis is manifested by the transformations in the economics of journal production, especially with the rise of open-access publishing and the neoliberalization of the academy; the developments in digital communications; and the global consolidation of Western corporate publishing power in “info-capitalism.” The evolution of darkmatter is poised in terms of negotiating this crisis as opportunity and risk. The digital journal is able to produce a range of multimedia outputs addressing the interdisciplinary fields of race and postcolonial study. The challenge of emerging Web projects and the proliferation of online information potentially repositions darkmatter as the privileged site for the publication of scholarly research. The essay speculates on this critical journal in a time of “information overload” as a site of “autonomous resistance” in the increasing commodification of knowledge.