Andamiajes y derivasla mediación algorítmica en la práctica de los riders

  1. Cañedo Rodríguez, Montserrat
  2. Allen-Perkins, Diego
Revista:
Empiria: Revista de metodología de ciencias sociales

ISSN: 1139-5737

Ano de publicación: 2023

Número: 59

Páxinas: 103-130

Tipo: Artigo

DOI: 10.5944/EMPIRIA.59.2023.37940 DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openDialnet editor

Outras publicacións en: Empiria: Revista de metodología de ciencias sociales

Resumo

There is a growing interest in the field of social sciences in the study of topics related to the so-called gig economy or platform economy and, among them, in the figure of the rider—a term that refers to the home delivery workers employed through digital platforms. In these platforms, the work of the riders is organized from algorithmic management logics, a mediation in which the panoptic quality of their forms of control and governmentality has tended to be emphasized. In contrast to these frameworks, this paper presents a theoretical-methodological approach that emphasizes the co-constitution—in an open agency—of the rider and the application, to ethnographically approach the everyday labor practices of riders. In the interest of exploring how algorithmic mediation functions in the diversity of riders’ experiences, we analyze the coordination tasks responsible for producing the shared space-time geography and the flexible control strategies that mediate the application. The text describes how the algorithm generates a kind of scaffolding that defines directive spatiotemporalities in the riders’ operations, within which the deliverers extend the landscape of calculability to those elements that the algorithm cannot consider and to those others that the rider must incorporate in order to make his activity compatible with the algorithmic logic. This article presents the initial results of an ethnography carried out in Madrid since September 2021 with riders from several of the main digital home delivery platforms: Glovo, Uber Eats, and Getir. Along with the fieldwork with riders, we interviewed four technologists in urban logistics. The results show that salaried riders have a less intense experience of the directive chronography of the algorithm, showing how autonomy is not necessarily equivalent to the riders’ capability to choose.

Referencias bibliográficas

  • ANDERSSON SCHWARZ, J. (2017): “Platform Logic: An Interdisciplinary Approach to the Platform-Based Economy”, Policy & Internet, 9(4). https://doi.org/10.1002/poi3.159
  • BASUKIE, J., WANG, Y., y LI, S. (2020): “Big data governance and algorithmic management in sharing economy platforms: A case of ridesharing in emerging markets”, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 161, 120310. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2020.120310
  • BERG, J., FURRER, M., HARMON, E., RANI, U., y SILBERMAN, M.S. (2018): Digital labour platforms and the future of work. Towards decent work in the online
  • BOLTANSKI, L. y CHIAPELLO, E. (2002): El nuevo espíritu del capitalismo, Madrid, Akal.
  • CALLON, M. y LAW, J. (2005): “On qualculation, agency, and otherness”, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 23, pp. 713-733. https://doi.org/10.1068/d343t
  • CAÑEDO RODRÍGUEZ, M. (2016): “Just in Time: Logistical Imaginaries of the Cosmopolis”, Urbanities, 6(1), pp. 25-38.
  • CAÑEDO RODRÍGUEZ, M. y ALLEN-PERKINS, D. (Coords.) (2023): “Tema emergente: Antropología de los algoritmos y prácticas del delivery”, Disparidades. Revista de Antropología, 78(1).
  • CEPS. (2021): Digital labour platforms in the EU Mapping and business models. Final report
  • DIEZ PRAT, F. y RANZ MARTÍN, R. (2020): “Mi experiencia como repartidor de Deliveroo y el intento por articular nuestra lucha desde la estructura sindical de UGT”, Teknokultura. Revista de Cultura Digital y Movimientos Sociales, 17(2), pp. 187-193. https://doi.org/10.5209/tekn.69532
  • DIZ, C., GONZÁLEZ, P. y PRIETO, A. (2023): “Reaprendiendo a trabajar: saberes que cuidan en el manejo de algoritmos entre riders”, Disparidades. Revista de Antropología, 78(1).
  • FINN, E. (2018): La búsqueda del algoritmo. Imaginación en la era de la informática, Barcelona, Alpha Decay.
  • FREY, C.B., y OSBORNE, M.A. (2017): “The future of employment: How susceptible are jobs to computerisation?”, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 114, pp. 254-280. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2016.08.019
  • GANDINI, A. (2019): “Labour process theory and the gig economy”, Human Relations, 72(6), pp. 1039-1056. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726718790002
  • GILLESPIE, T. (2014): “The relevance of algorithms”, en Media technologies: Essays on communication, materiality, and society, Cambridge, MIT Press, pp. 167-193.
  • GREEN, E.C. (2001): “Can Qualitative Research Produce Reliable Quantitative Fin-dings?”, Field Methods, 13(1), pp. 3–19. http://doi.org10.1177/1525822X0101300101
  • GRIESBACH, K., REICH, A., y ELLIOTT-NEGRI, L. (2019): “Algorithmic Control in Platform Food Delivery Work”, Socious, 5, pp. 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1177/2378023119870041
  • JATON, F. (2021): The Constitution of Algorithms. Ground-Truthing, Programming, Formulating, Cambridge y Londres, The MIT Press.
  • LATOUR, B. (2008): Reensamblar lo social. Una introducción a la teoría del actor-red. Buenos Aires, Ediciones Manantial.
  • LEHDONVIRTA, V. (2018): “Flexibility in the gig economy: managing time on three online piecework platforms”, New Technology, Work and Employment, 33(1), pp. 13-29. https://doi.org/10.1111/ntwe.12102
  • LIN, P.M.C., WAI CHING, AU., LEUNG, V.T.Y., y PENG, K. (2020): “Exploring the meaning of work within the sharing economy: A case of food-delivery workers”, International Journal of Hospitality Management, 91, pp. 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2020.102686
  • LÓPEZ-MARTÍNEZ, G., HAZ-GÓMEZ, F.E., y MANZANERA-ROMÁN, S. (2022): “Identities and Precariousness in the Collaborative Economy, Neither Wage-Earner, nor Self-Employed: Emergence and Consolidation of the Homo Rider, a Case Stu-dy”, Societies, 12(1), 6. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc12010006
  • MÖHLMANN, M., ZALMANSON, L., HENFRIDSSON, O., y GREGORY, R.W. (2021): “Algorithmic Management of Work on Online Labor Platforms: When Mat-ching Meets Control”, MIS Quaterly, 45(4), pp. 1999-2022. https://doi.org/10.25300/MISQ/2021/15333
  • RANI, U. y FURRER, M. (2020): “Digital labour platforms and new forms of flexible work in developing countries: Algorithmic management of work and workers”, Competition & Change, 25(2), pp. 212-236. https://doi.org/10.1177/1024529420905187
  • REVILLA, J.C. y BLÁZQUEZ MARTÍN, V. (2021): “Uneasy riders: contradictorias lógicas disciplinarias para una posición laboral imposible”, Revista Española de Sociología, 30(2), pp. 1-19. https://doi.org/10.22325/fes/res.2021.35
  • SCHILDT, H. (2017): “Big data and organizational design – the brave new world of al-gorithmic management and computer augmented transparency”, Innovation, 19(1), pp. 23-30. https://doi.org/10.1080/14479338.2016.1252043
  • SEAVER, N. (2022): Computing Taste. Algorithms and the Makers of Music Recommendations, Chicago, The Chicago University Press.
  • SEAVER, N. (2019): “Knowing Algorithms”, en Digital STS: A Field Guide, Princeton, Princeton University Press, pp. 412-422.
  • SEGHEZZI, A., WINKENBACH, M., y MANGIARARCINA, R. (2021): “On-demand food delivery: a systematic literature review”, The International Journal of Logistics Management, 32(4), pp. 1334-1355. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJLM-03-2020-0150
  • SENNETT, R. (2006): La corrosión del carácter, Barcelona, Anagrama.
  • SHAPIRO, A. (2018): “Between autonomy and control: Strategies of arbitrage in the “on-demand” economy, New Media & Society, 20(8), pp. 2954-2971. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444817738236
  • SHARMA, S. (2014): In the meantime: Temporality and cultural politics, Durham, Duke University Press.
  • SUN, P. (2019): “Your order, their labor: An exploration of algorithms and laboring on food delivery platforms in China”, Chinese Journal of Communication, 12(3), pp. 308-323. https://doi.org/10.1080/17544750.2019.1583676
  • THRIFT, N. (2008): Non-Representational Theory. Space, Politics, Affect, Londres y Nueva York, Routledge.
  • VALLAS, S. y SCHOR, J.B. (2020): “What Do Platforms Do? Understanding the Gig Economy”, Annual Review of Sociology, 46, pp. 273-294. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-121919-054857
  • ZIEWITZ, M. (2016): “Governing Algorithms: Myth, Mess, and Methods”, Science, Technology, & Human Values, 41(1), pp. 3-16.
  • ZIEWITZ, M. (2017): “A not Quite Random Walk: Experimenting with the Ethnometh-ods of the Algorithm”, Big Data & Society, 4(2), pp. 1-13
Fonte de datos: Dialnet