Making Lovework: Editorial Notes for the JOPP issue on Peer Production and Work

The increasing production of value by entities which are not compensated for their labour – social media users, financial algorithms, robots in factories, etc – mean the ranks of unemployed people keep growing. We often confuse being ‘unemployed’ with being ‘unworked’, but what it really means is that we are ‘unwaged’. There is a lot of work to be done, but for that to happen it needs to be separated from employment. As a case in point: the peer-reviewed articles in this tenth issue of the Journal of Peer Production examine volunteers in commons-based and commons-oriented production. In all these case studies – whether contributing to an online encyclopedia, to a herbarium, to a scientific project, to mathematical schoolbooks, or engaging in ‘maker’ activities – their labour was unpaid. This raises a number of questions. Why do they do it? Who can take part? What does this mean for work and society? And finally: why does this matter, and should anything be done about it?