Postcolonial Peer Production

This chapter focuses on India to give an overview of postcolonial peer production (PCPP) and shows how the bazaar model provides an alternative perspective to peer production. It also focuses on the important strands that make a historical study and contemporary analysis of PCPP possible. The chapter presents bazaar-level innovation and organizational structure as a unique bottom-up model of peer production. It provides a brief political history of the Indian context to show why a particular type of PCPP emerged. The chapter develops the traditions of popular wisdom and embodied knowledge as open repositories for non-elites to learn and tinker with technological products. It analyzes the bazaars side by side with traditional bases of popular knowledge, as a way to carve out historical roots and bring out their essence. The chapter moves into a more specific discussion on peer communities, particularly through a focus on money, creativity, and modes of organization.