The ambivalence of logistical connectivity: a co-research with Foodora Riders

Leonardi, Daniela; Murgia, Annalisa; Briziarelli, Marco; Armano, Emiliana

doi:10.13169/workorgalaboglob.13.1.0155

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Work Organisation, Labour & Globalisation

Volume 13, Issue 1

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The ambivalence of logistical connectivity: a co-research with Foodora Riders

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Author(s): Daniela Leonardi , Annalisa Murgia , Marco Briziarelli , Emiliana Armano

Publication date (Print): 1 April 2019

Journal: Work Organisation, Labour & Globalisation

Publisher: Pluto Journals

Keywords: platform capitalism, gig economy, workers, subjectivity, digital connectivity, logistics, conflict, Foodora

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Abstract

This article explores the notion of logistical connectivity as a twofold and ambivalent lens. On one hand, connectivity can be seen as a pervasive logistical tool for labour exploitation and surveillance. On the other, it opens up opportunities to establish new kinds of social relations and forms of worker organisation. The analysis draws on empirical data gathered during 2016 in Turin, a city in northern Italy, during mobilisations by Foodora workers. The findings show that logistical connectivity constitutes an unprecedented form of pervasive control, but - under certain conditions - can be shaken and reversed by workers and become a mode of mobilisation and self-organising.

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Journal

Journal ID (doi): 10.2307/j50010512

Journal ID (jcode): workorgalaboglob

Title: Work Organisation, Labour & Globalisation

Publisher: Pluto Journals

ISSN: 1745-641X

ISSN: 1745-6428

Publication date (Print): 1 April 2019

Volume: 13

Issue: 1 ( doiID: 10.13169/workorgalaboglob.13.issue-1 )

Pages: 155-171

Article

Publisher ID: workorgalaboglob.13.1.0155

DOI: 10.13169/workorgalaboglob.13.1.0155

SO-VID: 1fbcdd4d-1f9f-49c4-a0e3-412e4f489bf3

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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/.

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lang eng

ScienceOpen disciplines: Sociology,Labor law,Political science,Labor & Demographic economics,Political economics

Keywords: platform capitalism,digital connectivity,subjectivity,workers,gig economy,conflict,Foodora,logistics

REFERENCES

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Comments

Comment on this article

[1] Abdelnour, S. (2012) Les Nouveaux Prolétaires [The new proletarians], Paris: Edition Textuel.

[2] Abdelnour, S. & B. Friot (2016) Uberisation et salaire à vie [Uberisation and long-term wage regime]. Accessed January 7, 2019 from https://avenirencommun.fr/2016/09/08/uberisation-salaire-a-vie-sarah-abdelnour-bernard-friot/.

[3] Alquati, R. (1993) Per fare conricerca [To do co-research. Theory and practice of co-research], Torino: Velleità alternative.

[4] Alquati, R. (2001) La società industriale d'oggi [Today's industrial society], Torino: Unpublished paper.

[5] Armano, E., A. Bove & A. Murgia (eds) (2017) Mapping Precariousness, Labour Insecurity and Uncertain Livelihoods: Subjectivities and Resistance, London: Routledge.

[6] Armano, E., M. Briziarelli, E. Chicchi & E. Risi (eds) (2017) Commitment e processi di soggettivazione nel free work [Relationship work. Commitment and subjectivation processes in free work], Special Issue Sociologia del Lavoro, 145, Milano: Franco Angeli.

[7] Armano, E., A. Murgia & M. Teli (2017) Platform capitalism e confini del lavoro negli spazi digitali [Platform capitalism and the boundaries of work in digital spaces], Milano: Mimesis.

[8] Beck, U. (1992) The Risk Society: Toward a New Modernity, Thousand Oaks: Sage.

[9] Bologna, S. (2018) The Rise of the European Self-Employed Workforce, Milano: Mimesis.

[10] Boltanski, L. & E. Chiapello (1999) Le nouvel esprit du capitalisme [The new spirit of capitalism], Paris: Gallimard.

[11] Castells, M. (1989) The Informational City: Information Technology, Economic Restructuring, and the Urban-Regional Process, Oxford: Blackwell.

[12] Cingolani, P. (2016) ‘Uberisation des travailleurs: où s'arrětera le capitalisme de plateforme?’ [Uberization of the workers: Where will the platform capitalism stop?]. Accessed January 7, 2019 from http://www.latribune.fr/opinions/tribunes/uberisation-des-travailleurs-ou-s-arretera-le-capitalisme-de-plateforme-596878.html.

[13] Cleaver, H. (1992) ‘The inversion of class perspective in Marxian theory: From valorisation to self-valorisation', Open Marxism, 2:106-44.

[14] Conaty, P., A. Bird & P. Ross (2016) Not Alone: Trade Union and Cooperative Solutions to Self-Employment, Manchester: Co-Operatives UK. Accessed January 7, 2019 from http://www.uk.coop/notalone.

[15] Cuppini, N., M. Frapporti & M. Pirone (2015) ‘Logistics struggles in the Po valley region: Territorial transformations and processes of antagonistic subjectivation', South Atlantic Quarterly, 114 (1):119-34.

[16] De Groen, W.P., I. Maselli & B. Fabo (2016) ‘The digital market for local services: A one-night stand for workers? An example from the on-demand economy', CEPS Special Report, 133. Accessed January 7, 2019 from https://www.ceps.eu/system/files/SR%20No%20133%20Sharing%20Economy%20for%20JRC.pdf.

[17] Deleuze, G. & F. Guattari (1987) A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Minnesota: University of Minnesota.

[18] Deliverance Project (2018) Accessed January 7, 2019 from https://it-it.facebook.com/DeliveranceProject.

[19] de Molina, M.M. (2004) ‘Common notions part 1. Workers inquiry, co-research, consciousness-raising', European Institute for Progressive Cultural Politics. Accessed January 7, 2019 from http://strickdistro.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Reading-16-Oct_Malo-De-Molina-2004.pdf.

[20] De Stefano, V. (2015) ‘The rise of the just-in-time workforce: On-demand work, crowdwork, and labor protection in the gig-economy', Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal, 37:461-71.

[21] Drahokoupil, J. & B. Fabo (2016) ‘The platform economy and the disruption of the employment relationship', ETUI Policy Brief, 5. Accessed January 7, 2019 from https://www.etui.org/Publications2/Policy-Briefs/European-Economic-Employment-and-Social-Policy/The-platform-economy-and-the-disruption-of-the-employment-relationship.

[22] Drahokoupil, J. & M. Jepsen (2017) ‘The digital economy and its implications for labour. The platform economy', Transfer, 23 (2):103-19.

[23] Dujarier, M. (2008) Le travail du consommateur [Putting the consumer to work], Paris: La Découverte.

[24] Dyer-Witheford, N. (1994) ‘Autonomist Marxism and information society', Capital & Class, 18 (1):85-125.

[25] Eurofound (2016) Exploring the Fraudulent Contracting of Work in the European Union, Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union.

[26] European Commission (2016) ‘A European agenda for the collaborative economy.

[27] Communication from the commission to the European Parliament, the council, the European economic and social committee and the committee of the regions', COM(2016) 356 final, Brussels. Accessed January 7, 2019 from https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52016DC0356&from=EN.

[28] Foucault, M. (1975). Surveiller et punir. Naissance de la prison, Paris: Gallimard [Discipline & Punish, the Birth of the Prison, New York: VintageBooks, 1995].

[29] Foucault, M. (1976) Histoire de la sexualité, Paris: Gallimard [The History of Sexuality: An Introduction, vol. 1, London: Allen Lane, 1979].

[30] Foucault, M. (1979) Naissance de la biopolitique. Résumé du cours au Collège de France, in Dit et écrits, vol. III, Paris: Gallimard [The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France 1978-1979, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008].

[31] Galloway, A.R. (2006) Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

[32] Hamm, M. (2015) ‘Understanding urban social movements in cognitive capitalism: Methodological reflections on participatory and ethnographic research', Anthropological Journal of European Cultures, 24 (2):16-33.

[33] Hesmondhalgh, D. (2010) ‘User-generated content, free labour and the cultural industries', Ephemera, 10 (3/4):267-84.

[34] Huws, U. (2014) ‘The underpinnings of class in the digital age: Living, labour and value', Socialist Register, 50:80-107.

[35] Huws, U. (2017) ‘Where did online platforms come from? The virtualization of work organization and the new policy challenges it raises', in P. Meil & V. Kirov (eds), The Policy Implications of Virtual Work, Cham: Palgrave Macmillan:29-48.

[36] Kitchin, R., T.P. Lauriault & M.W. Wilson (eds) (2017) Understanding spatial media, London: Sage.

[37] Leonardi, D. (2017) ‘Macchine e Lavoro, intervento al seminario Macchine viventi e vite macchiniche: per la critica dell'innovazione capitalistic’ [Machines and work, communication at the seminar Living machines and machinic lives: for the critique of capitalist innovation]. Accessed January 7, 2019 from http://hobo-bologna.info/2017/01/28/macchine-viventi-e-vite-macchiniche-per-la-critica-dellinnovazione-capitalistica/.

[38] Loriol, M. (2017) ‘Digitalisation de l'économie et transformations du travail’ [Digitalization of the economy and transformations of work], Les Cahiers Français, 398:2-7.

[39] Neilson, B. (2012) ‘Five theses on understanding logistics as power', Distinktion: Scandinavian Journal of Social Theory, 13 (2):322-39.

[40] Neilson, B. (2013) ‘Life and code: Logistics, culture and economy', in T. Bennett (ed.), Challenging (the) Humanities. Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing:99-116.

[41] Neilson, B. & N. Rossiter (2011) ‘Still waiting, still moving', in D. Bissell & G. Fuller (eds), Stillness in a Mobile World. London: Routledge:51-67.

[42] Prassl, J. & M. Risak (2015) ‘Uber, Taskrabbit, and co.: Platforms as employers - rethinking the legal analysis of crowdwork', Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal, 37:619-51.

[43] Scholz, T. (2016) Platform Cooperativism, Berlino: Rosa Luxembourg Stiftung.

[44] Schor, J. (2016) ‘Debating the sharing economy', Journal of Self-Governance & Management Economics, 4 (3):7-22.

[45] Smith, A. (2016) ‘Public predictions for the future of workforce automation'. Accessed January 7, 2019 from http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/03/10/public-predictions-for-the-future-of-workforce-automation/.

[46] Srnicek, N. (2016) Platform Capitalism, London: Polity Press.

[47] Terranova, T. (2010) ‘Free labour: Producing culture for the digital economy', Social Text, 63 (18/2):33-58.

[48] Valenduc, G. & P. Vendramin (2016) ‘Work in the digital economy: Sorting the old from the new', Working Paper European Trade Union Institute. Accessed January 7, 2019 from https://www.etui.org/Publications2/Working-Papers/Work-in-the-digital-economy-sorting-the-old-from-the-new.

[49] Vecchi, B. (2017) Il capitalismo delle piattaforme, Roma: Il manifesto.