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Paper short abstract:

This paper seeks to uncover the latent hierarchies and hostilities that workers endure on the roads while engaging in the labour process of platform mediated gig work. It advances the understanding on the role that roads play in generating Value for the platform.

Paper long abstract:

Meteoric rise gig economy has resulted in the formation of novel urbanscapes around the world. A sea of literature has emerged on documenting the working conditions of gig workers and labour process of gig economy. However, a little has been explored about the relationships gig workers share with their workplace, i.e. The Road itself. Probing this can clarify the novel dynamics which are at play in the gig workplace and how they depart from the way workplaces are understood in traditional sociology and anthropology of work.

For data collection author enrolled as a gig worker in a popular food delivery platform in New Delhi (India) to uncover otherwise opaque aspects of the labour process. Multisited ethnographic methods were utilised to document the mobile and fluid realities of the emerging gig economy. It required the author to move from different sites of analysis which included – roads, delivery locations and the restaurants to understand the distinct function each one of them serve in the labour process of the platform. These ethnographic insights were also informed and refined by 67 in-depth interviews and accompanying gig workers to their delivery locations to bring forth their perspective.

Paper uncovers the narratives of hostilities, hierarchy and solidarity which are experienced and cultivated while delivering orders. Thus, understanding how roads function as class construct for ever increasing gig workforce in Delhi. Paper also analysis role of roads as a means of production in generating surplus value in the labour process of platform mediated gig work.