Paper short abstract:

My paper examines the unequal distribution of opportunities and risks among Uber drivers in Nairobi. It argues that, despite narratives of disintermediation, formal and informal financial intermediaries have emerged to lower entry barriers and rise exit barriers for the drivers.

Paper long abstract:

My paper examines the unequal distribution of opportunities and risks among the participants in the booming Kenyan gig economy. It draws on an ethnography of Uber drivers in Nairobi conducted before the Covid-19 pandemic and argues that, notwithstanding narratives of disintermediation advanced by digital firms, formal and informal financial intermediaries have emerged on the Kenyan market to provide access to cars and loans to struggling drivers. While helping lower the entry barriers, they rise the exit barriers for the drivers through debt. My analysis builds upon Peter Fleming’s concept of 'radical responsibilization' to explain how the power of these intermediaries stems out of three aspects inherent to the platform-drivers relationship: intensification of work, indebtedness and surveillance.

This case study lays bare the contradictions between market-driven solutions to address unemployment and socio-economic exclusion, and the entrenchment of pre-existing power relations. In so doing, my contribution critically engages with the Future of Work in Africa literature. It challenges the emphasis placed by both development and corporate actors on connectivity and entrepreneurship as key drivers of upward social mobility and suggests that the Future of Work agenda is premised upon a process of objectification from above in which the workers are constituted as entrepreneurs and disciplined through finance.