‘Thinking through digital mediations and spatialities of platform based work’ is a roundtable reflection between geographers. The publication explores, contextualizes and problematizes the role of geography in the gig economy. This collection of reflections and commentaries is steered by two overarching questions:
1) What are the different forms and roles of digital mediation in platform-based work(s)?
2) What are the different forms and roles of spatialities in platform-based work(s)?
Natasha Webster and I have collaborated on Section 1: Work, Power and Inequalities. We discuss how work under capitalist systems is assigned meanings and values that reflect social ordering of power. Drawing on the examples of Airbnb and a range of other platforms. The roundtable brings together eight researchers from across Europe studying the gig economy: Natasha Webster, Qian Zhang, Olivia Butler, Mathilde Dissing Christensen, Katrine Duus, Konstantinos Floros, Kalle Kusk, and myself.
It is available Open Access here at Stockholm University Press:
This publication is part of a Formas funded project “Integration Delivered? Unveiling immigrant experiences in the growing Swedish gig economy” run by Natasha A. Webster and Qian Zhang at the Department of Human Geography at Stockholm University. It brings together researchers’ reflections based upon the session “Beyond numbers and algorithms–deep-diving into the platform-mediated gig economy” which took place at the Nordic Geographer’s Meeting in Joensuu, Finland at the University of Eastern Finland on June 19-22, 2022.