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      Call for Papers: Hierarchies of domesticity – spatial and social boundaries. Deadline for submissions is 30th September, 2024Full details can be read here.

      Articles to be no longer than 6,000 words (excluding footnotes and bibliography) and submitted in two forms: an anonymised version in which all references to the authors’ institution and publications are omitted; and a full version including the authors’ titles and institutional affiliations. For complete instructions on style, formatting, etc., please consult: https://www.plutojournals.com/wp-content/uploads/WOLG-Instructions-for-Authors2023.pdf 

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      I am a Driver-Partner

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      Work Organisation, Labour and Globalisation
      Pluto Journals
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            Abstract

            What does it mean to be a worker in the sharing economy? How is this subjectivity produced by the algorithmic performativities infused into these platforms and how, in turn, is this subjectivity negotiated with? To investigate this question, this article examines the particular algorithmic system of Uber, a labour platform which connects passengers with self-employed ‘Driver-Partners’. Using the notion of the machine, it explores the intentions and agencies embedded in two strategic intersections of matter. The Partner-Management-Messaging machine attempts to shape the behaviour of the Driver-Partner through an array of messaging and motivational techniques. The Driver-Partner responds ambivalently through strategies which both collaborate and conflict with these operational logics. The ViolentFlesh-Passenger machine delves into the informatic notion of the body which Uber maintains and the concrete processes that constantly reinforce this notion. However, this informatic identity fails to fully exhaust the possibilities of the corporeal, highlighting the disparity between this ostensibly ethereal and largely vestigial driver and the violent actions nevertheless carried out by bodies on other bodies. These cases exemplify the negotiations and contingencies which are ever present within algorithmically regulated systems of labour.

            Content

            Author and article information

            Journal
            10.13169
            workorgalaboglob
            Work Organisation, Labour and Globalisation
            Pluto Journals
            1745641X
            17456428
            Winter 2017
            : 11
            : 2
            : 7-20
            Article
            workorgalaboglob.11.2.0007
            10.13169/workorgalaboglob.11.2.0007
            718ef53b-239f-47ac-9680-14f4a024be46
            © Luke Munn, 2017

            All content is freely available without charge to users or their institutions. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission of the publisher or the author. Articles published in the journal are distributed under a http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

            History

            Sociology,Labor law,Political science,Labor & Demographic economics,Political economics

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