Convenors
Giorgio Pirina, Università Cà Foscari di Venezia
giorgio.pirina@unive.it
Francesco Pontarelli, Università Cà Foscari di Venezia
francesco.pontarelli@unive.it
It is now widely recognised that platform-mediated gig work is precarious and reproduces long-standing social hierarchies and inequalities (Woodcock, Graham, 2020; Borghi, Peterlongo, 2023). Among the most affected groups are migrant workers, who are increasingly integrated into the gig economy. A growing body of literature highlights the co-constitutive relationship between urban platform-mediated work and migrant labour (Abkhezr, McMahon, 2022; van Doorn, 2023). Migrants are disproportionately represented in low-wage platform-mediated work, where they face precarious conditions and limited social protections. Their presence in the gig economy is not incidental but actively shaped by capitalist mechanisms of control and exploitation. As van Doorn argues, the gig economy functions as an «infrastructural» agent in the reconstitution of labour relations, a process in which platforms reinforce racial and socio-economic stratifications (van Doorn, 2017). Platforms incorporate migrant workers into fragmented and hierarchical labour markets, often relegating them to the most precarious and underpaid jobs, such as delivery services, cleaning, and care work. Studies show how these processes are compounded by legal and institutional frameworks that limit migrant workers’ rights and exacerbate their vulnerability to exploitation (Orth, 2023; van Doorn, Vijay, 2021).
While platform-mediated gig work has been extensively studied from a labour process perspective, and recent research has focused on migrant labour in urban platform-mediated gig work, the dimensions of everyday life and time remain understudied (Chen, Ping, 2020; Andersen et al., 2024; Pirina et al., 2024). The everyday is where exploitation and resistance become most apparent. Workers are subject to algorithmic forms of control that not only determine their working hours but also intrude into their personal lives, resulting in an expanded scope of platform surveillance (Moore, Joyce, 2020). These algorithms create an illusion of flexibility but, at the same time, workers are left grappling with unpredictable schedules and the pressure to remain constantly available (Huang, Graham, 2019). In gig work, time is increasingly fragmented and commodified, with workers oscillating between periods of intense work and waiting for tasks, which affects their ability to plan their lives (Tassinari, Maccarrone, 2020). This temporal disorientation contributes to the mental and physical exhaustion reported by many gig workers and reflects broader patterns of how the gig economy encroaches upon workers’ ability to maintain a boundary between work and non-work time.
This panel aims to explore the intersection of platform-mediated gig work, migrant labour, and everyday life through ethnographic and qualitative approaches, offering critical perspectives on the lived experiences of on-demand digital labour.
By focusing on ethnographic case studies, we aim to foster a deeper understanding of the ways in which lean digital platforms reproduce and intensify existing inequalities, and how migrant workers navigate and resist these conditions.
We encourage submissions from researchers engaged in fieldwork across various sectors of the platform economy, such as food delivery, transportation, domestic work, and other on-demand services. Contributions that draw on comparative perspectives, interdisciplinary approaches, and critical analyses of legal, policy, and institutional frameworks are particularly welcome.
Open questions
- What significant factors, if any, differentiate migrant platform workers from non-migrant platform workers, and how do these differences manifest?
- What are the working conditions faced by migrant workers in platform-based jobs, and how do these conditions affect their everyday lives?
- What role do lean digital platforms play in shaping racialised and stratified labour markets?
- In what ways do lean digital platforms impact migration infrastructures?
- How do migrant workers respond to and organise against the challenges posed by platform-mediated work, and what strategies of resistance are emerging?
- What are the key socio-economic and political factors that influence migrants’ participation in the gig economy?
Keywords
platform-mediated work; migrant work; everyday life; migration infrastructure; precarious labour; racialised labour markets; digital platforms.
Sub-disciplines or cross-disciplinary areas of concern
sociology of work; labour process theory; migration studies; labour studies; urban sociology; economic anthropology; race, ethnic studies.
References
Abkhezr, P., McMahon, M.
2022 Migrant workers in the gig economy: Precarity, exploitation, and resistance. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 48, 5, pp. 1018-1034.
Andersen, M., Zampoukos, K., Spanger, M., Mitchell, D.
2024 «At your service: the mobilities, rhythms and everyday lives of migrant labour in the gig economy», in Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 50, 15, pp. 3733–3750. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2024.2379641
Borghi, V., Peterlongo, G.
2023 «Hybridisation of work and the platform informal revolution», in Rassegna Italiana di Sociologia, 64, 2, pp. 317-344.
Moore, P., Joyce, S.
2020 «The algorithmic management of work and workers: Emerging issues and implications», in Work, Employment and Society, 34, 2, pp. 327-338.
Orth, M.
2023 «Labour rights, precarity and migrant gig workers in the digital economy», in Global Labour Journal, 14, 1, pp. 95-112.
Pirina, G., Della Puppa, F., Perocco, F.
2024 «The time-space-energy nexus in the gig economy: the work and everyday lives of migrant food delivery “walkers” in Venice», in Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 50, 5, pp. 3822–3838. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2024.2379648
Tassinari, A., Maccarrone, V.
2020 «Riders on the storm: Workplace solidarity among gig economy couriers in Italy and the UK», in Work, Employment and Society, 34, 1, pp. 35-54.
van Doorn, N., Vijay, D.
2021 «Racial capitalism and platform labour: A case study of migrant gig workers in Europe», in European Journal of Cultural Studies, 24, 3, pp. 355-371.
van Doorn, N.
2023 «Platform labor and the politics of precarity: Migration and racialized exploitation», in New Media & Society, 25, 2, pp. 345-361.
Woodcock, J., Graham, M.
2020 The gig economy: A critical introduction. Polity Press.
Convenors’ bios:
Giorgio Pirina holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Sociology from the University of Padua and a PhD in Sociology and Social Research from the University of Bologna. His research interests include the socio-ecological consequences of platform capitalism, encompassing a range of topics from the analysis of commodity production chains to territorial inequalities, via platform work and the gig economy. He is post-doc research fellow at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, where he is involved in the Horizon Europe project entitled «Exit – Exploring sustainable strategies to counteract territorial inequalities from an intersectional approach». He is the author of the book Connessioni globali. Una ricerca sul lavoro nel capitalismo delle piattaforme.
Francesco Pontarelli is a postdoctoral fellow at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Johannesburg (South Africa); a M.Sc. in Labour, Social Movements and Development at SOAS, University of London (UK); and a M.A. in International Relations at the University of Naples «L’Orientale» (Italy). His research interests include platform work and the gig economy, labour and social movement studies, migration, Gramsci’s thought, international political economy. He is the editorial manager and book review editor of Notebooks: The Journal for studies on Power (Brill).