Paper short abstract:

This paper critically examines the extent to which the arrival of platform technologies has transformed the lives of informal workers in Kampala’s huge moto-taxi industry, concluding that a process of ‘selective’ formalisation is reshaping rather than overcoming pre-existing forms of precarity.

Paper long abstract:

When ride-hailing platforms first arrived on Kampala’s moto-taxi scene in the mid-2010s, there were high hopes that order would finally be brought to bear over the city’s colossal workforce of boda boda riders. Having long been positioned as unruly resistors to state regulation, with the arrival of new platform technologies came the dual promise of profits alongside professionalisation – a smart corporate solution to an ingrained political problem. Drawing on mixed-methods research, this paper reflects critically on the extent to which the industry’s digital turn has transformed the terms and organisation of riders’ working lives. Though claiming to modernise and empower riders through the ‘emancipatory potential’ of digital connectivity and offering in many people’s eyes a pathway to formalisation of the workforce, Kampala’s ride-hailing platforms in fact appear highly selective in their handling of workers’ (in)formalities. Through an emphasis on new kinds of standardisation and legibility rather than serious engagement with deeper questions around labour rights, voice and protections, the platforms effectively enact a process of what might be thought of as ‘sub-’ or ‘selective’ formalisation, in which certain aspects of boda work come close to being formalised while wider forms of precarity remain untouched if not worsened. In examining these issues, this contribution hopes to: provide insights into how the ‘disruptive technology’ of apps is incorporated into everyday labour practices; engage critically with the notion / branding of digital ‘transformation’; and nuance the binary assumption that gig economies informalise work in the North whilst formalising it in the South.