IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envira/v56y2024i4p1129-1149.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Gig work as migrant work: The platformization of migration infrastructure

Author

Listed:
  • Niels van Doorn

    (New Media and Digital Culture, Department of Media Studies, 1234University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands)

  • Darsana Vijay

    (Faculty of Information (iSchool), 1234University of Toronto, Canada)

Abstract

With markets concentrating predominantly in and around large cities, gig platforms across the globe seem to depend as much on the cheap labor of migrants and minorities as on investment capital and permissive governments. Accordingly, we argue that there is an urgent need to center migrant experiences and the role of migrant labor in gig economy research, in order to generate a better understanding of how gig work offers certain opportunities and challenges to migrants with a variety of backgrounds and skill levels. To fill this research gap, this article examines why migrant workers in Berlin, Amsterdam, and New York take up platform labor and how they incorporate it into their everyday lives and migration trajectories. Additionally, it considers the extent to which gig platforms are emerging as actors in the political economy of migration, as a result of how they absorb migrant labor and mediate migrant mobilities. We move beyond the existing parameters of gig economy research by engaging with two strands of literature on migration and migrant labor that, we feel, are particularly useful for framing our analysis: the autonomy of migration approach and the migration infrastructures perspective. Combining these conceptual lenses enables us not only to critically situate migrant gig workers’ experiences but also to identify a broader development: the platformization of low-wage labor markets that are an integral component of migration infrastructures.

Suggested Citation

  • Niels van Doorn & Darsana Vijay, 2024. "Gig work as migrant work: The platformization of migration infrastructure," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 56(4), pages 1129-1149, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:56:y:2024:i:4:p:1129-1149
    DOI: 10.1177/0308518X211065049
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0308518X211065049
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0308518X211065049?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Weiqiang Lin & Johan Lindquist & Biao Xiang & Brenda S. A. Yeoh, 2017. "Migration infrastructures and the production of migrant mobilities," Mobilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(2), pages 167-174, March.
    2. Maxime Felder & Joan Stavo-Debauge & Luca Pattaroni & Marie Trossat & Guillaume Drevon, 2020. "Between Hospitality and Inhospitality: The Janus-Faced 'Arrival Infrastructure'," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(3), pages 55-66.
    3. Chih-Mei, Luo, 2018. "Are Labour Market Reforms the Answer to Post-Euro-Crisis Management? Reflections on Germany’s Hartz Reforms," European Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 26(4), pages 738-754, October.
    4. Biao Xiang & Johan Lindquist, 2014. "Migration Infrastructure," International Migration Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48, pages 122-148, September.
    5. K. Sabeel Rahman & Kathleen Thelen, 2019. "The Rise of the Platform Business Model and the Transformation of Twenty-First-Century Capitalism," Politics & Society, , vol. 47(2), pages 177-204, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mohamed Mousa & Walid Chaouali & Monowar Mahmood, 2023. "The Inclusion of Gig Employees and their Career Satisfaction: Do Individual and Collaborative Job Crafting Play a Role?," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 1055-1068, September.
    2. Heike Hanhörster & Susanne Wessendorf, 2020. "The Role of Arrival Areas for Migrant Integration and Resource Access," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(3), pages 1-10.
    3. Coveri, Andrea & Cozza, Claudio & Guarascio, Dario, 2023. "Blurring boundaries: an analysis of the digital platforms-military nexus," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1364, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    4. Dolata, Ulrich, 2023. "Industrieplattformen: Eine neue Form der Handlungskoordination in der Wirtschaft," Research Contributions to Organizational Sociology and Innovation Studies, SOI Discussion Papers 2024-01, University of Stuttgart, Institute for Social Sciences, Department of Organizational Sociology and Innovation Studies.
    5. Dolata, Ulrich & Schrape, Jan-Felix, 2022. "Platform architectures: The structuration of platform companies on the Internet," Research Contributions to Organizational Sociology and Innovation Studies, SOI Discussion Papers 2022-01, University of Stuttgart, Institute for Social Sciences, Department of Organizational Sociology and Innovation Studies.
    6. Dolata, Ulrich, 2024. "Industry platforms: A new mode of coordination in the economy," Research Contributions to Organizational Sociology and Innovation Studies, SOI Discussion Papers 2024-02, University of Stuttgart, Institute for Social Sciences, Department of Organizational Sociology and Innovation Studies.
    7. Timo Seidl, 2022. "The politics of platform capitalism: A case study on the regulation of Uber in New York," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 16(2), pages 357-374, April.
    8. Franziska Cooiman, 2024. "Imprinting the economy: The structural power of venture capital," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 56(2), pages 586-602, March.
    9. Antea Barišić & Mahdi Ghodsi & Michael Landesmann, 2024. "Technological Push and Pull Factors of Bilateral Migration," wiiw Working Papers 242, The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw.
    10. Weisstanner, David, 2019. "Insiders under pressure: Flexible employment and wage inequality," INET Oxford Working Papers 2019-06, Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford.
    11. Marie Nilsen & Trond Kongsvik & Stian Antonsen, 2022. "Taming Proteus: Challenges for Risk Regulation of Powerful Digital Labor Platforms," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(10), pages 1-23, May.
    12. Barry Eichengreen, 2023. "Financial regulation in the age of the platform economy," Journal of Banking Regulation, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 24(1), pages 40-50, March.
    13. Nguyen, Phong Thanh & Nguyen, Linh Thi My, 2022. "Understanding platform market value through decentralization governance — An integrative model from signaling and mechanism design theory," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 183(C).
    14. Eyert, Florian & Irgmaier, Florian & Ulbricht, Lena, 2022. "Extending the framework of algorithmic regulation. The Uber case," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 16(1), pages 23-44.
    15. Weiqiang Lin & Johan Lindquist & Biao Xiang & Brenda S. A. Yeoh, 2017. "Migration infrastructures and the production of migrant mobilities," Mobilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(2), pages 167-174, March.
    16. Devika Narayan, 2022. "Platform capitalism and cloud infrastructure: Theorizing a hyper-scalable computing regime," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 54(5), pages 911-929, August.
    17. Cooiman, Franziska, 2022. "Imprinting the economy: The structural power of venture capital," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, issue OnlineFir, pages 1-1.
    18. Soltanzadeh, Javad & Blind, Knut & Elyasi, Mehdi, 2023. "Exploring how regulators face platform business issues in the lifecycle stages: Evidence of iranian ride-hailing platform business," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(7).
    19. Marcello Natili & Fedra Negri, 2023. "Disentangling (new) labour market divides: outsiders’ and globalization losers’ socio-economic risks in Europe," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 57(2), pages 1561-1585, April.
    20. Hartmann, Sarah, 2024. "Smoothness as a quality of care: An STS approach to transnational healthcare mediation," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 347(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:56:y:2024:i:4:p:1129-1149. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.