Criminalizing the countryside, platformizing the school: digital sovereignty as counter-hegemony

Abstract

This qualitative, exploratory study analyses how the platformization of public education by large technology corporations reconfigures the superstructural mechanisms of domination bearing upon Field Education, the Brazilian countryside education movement. We argue that it faces a twofold siege: the symbolic delegitimization carried out by hegemonic media, which labels social movements and field subjects, is renewed through algorithmic circulation, while a material dependence of schools upon transnational private platforms takes hold. The empirical basis comprises 2,729 responses from municipal public-school teachers in Bahia, Brazil, collected within the Formacampo Programme. Findings indicate strong dependence on commercial platforms, poor critical data literacy, the absence of basic public infrastructure, and majority adherence among teachers to the premise that private services outperform public ones. Digital sovereignty is therefore defended as a counter-hegemonic idea capable of addressing both fronts of the siege, in dialogue with Freirean and decolonial perspectives.