Re-learning to Labour: Caring Knowledge in the Handling of Algorithms Among Riders
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3989/dra.2023.001dKeywords:
platform economy, algorithms, riders, feminist economy, ethics of care, knowledge productionAbstract
In this paper we analyze how food-delivery riders are relearning to labour in the platform economy. At the intersection of feminist economy and Science and Technology Studies, our fieldwork tracks the practices, tactics and knowledge that riders produce around the algorithm. We focus on the collective production of knowledge for two reasons: first, because, given the opacity that characterizes these platforms, placing knowledge at the center allows us to make the relationships that sustain their work visible, those that the algorithms make invisible, but without which they would not be able to operate. Second, because they allow us to understand the worlds of algorithms not as closed worlds, but as social relations that concern and occupy the riders, and whose handling can become a matter of care.
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Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación
Grant numbers PID2020-115170RB-100
