The Materiality of Knowledge: The Colonial Roots of the Knowledge Economy

This book develops a materialist conception of knowledge by uncovering its entanglement with the history of colonial capitalism. Against accounts that frame cognitive capitalism and the knowledge economy as recent developments, it argues that these formations are rooted in long-standing processes of dispossession, extraction, and exploitation inaugurated during colonial modernity. Drawing on postcolonial critique, Marxian categories, and case studies from New Spain, it reframes concepts such as human capital, intellectual labour, and knowledge accumulation. The work highlights how colonial power structured hierarchies of knowledge through race, labour, and difference, and how these structures persist in contemporary capitalism. Attention is given to struggles over knowledge, from early colonial encounters to present-day resistance against its commodification. This book offers an original contribution to the critique of political economy, proposing a historically grounded account of knowledge as a site of both exploitation and struggle.

Bernardo Paci (Fiesole, 1993) is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Naples "Federico II". His research focuses on the intersection of critical theory, postcolonial studies, and global intellectual history. He is a member of the Group of Critical Theory of Society at the University of Milan-Bicocca, and has previously authored the book "Razzismo, colonialismo e mitologie bianche. La storia rubata di Grande Zimbabwe" (2022).