This special issue situates Digital Solidarity Economies (DSE) within this broader landscape of resistance and renewal. DSE refers to the diverse practices, technologies, and organisational forms that challenge extractive models of the digital economy by embedding principles of cooperation, mutual aid, and shared ownership into data governance, platforms, and artificial intelligence. In doing so, they extend long-standing traditions of the social and solidarity economy into the digital realm, offering concrete pathways toward democratic and sustainable digital futures.

By bringing together case studies and theoretical reflections from across regions, this special issue on digital solidarity economies responds to an urgent need: to reframe the debate on digital sovereignty and autonomy from below, and to recognise that alternative digital economies are already being built – by collectives that prioritise solidarity over profit. Here, “from below” is inspired by the tradition of British Marxist historians, such as Edward Palmer Thompson (1996), as a way of telling history from the perspective of the working class. In the context of digital solidarity economies, this means the experiences led by workers, grassroots collectives, and diverse networks.