CONCEPT
Refusal-in-Place
Odell's signature practice of resistance conducted from within the systems one critiques rather than through withdrawal — the alternative to both capitulation and the exit to the woods.
Refusal-in-place is Jenny Odell's practical answer to the binary between triumphalist adoption and Luddite withdrawal. Developed across How to Do Nothing and Saving Time, it names a disciplined stance that remains inside the platforms, tools, and incentive structures one opposes — not because they are good but because exit is either impossible or a form of privilege most people cannot afford. The practice consists of choosing where attention goes rather than allowing platforms to choose, defending interior spaces of non-engagement within lives that must continue to use the tools, and modeling for others what resistance looks like when it cannot be staged from a Berlin garden. It is, in the AI age, the only form of refusal available to the developer in Lagos or the parent in Topeka.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The stance distinguishes Odell's framework from the more familiar critiques of technology that organize themselves around withdrawal. Byung-Chul Han tends his garden in Berlin and does not own a smartphone;