Paper short abstract:

This paper, informed by 12 months of ethnographic research in Bangalore, India, is an examination of the contextual factors, including platforms’ spatial organisation of work and remuneration patterns, which act as impediments and frustrate workers’ efforts towards collective mobilisation.

Paper long abstract:

This paper examines the collective mobilisation efforts of Swiggy and Zomato workers in Bangalore, India, and discusses some of the significant factors which have impeded sustained collective mobilisation. This paper draws on 12 months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in several localities in Bangalore from June 2019 to July 2020. Despite the physical proximity and everyday acts of mutual support which food delivery workers experience and share with one another, why have they struggled to create enduring solidarities, protests largely resembling ‘spontaneous’ acts which dissipate in a matter of days? I problematise simplistic understandings of the transformation of workers from a ‘technical’ category to a ‘political’ category by paying attention to the socio-political factors, as well as the very organisation of platform work, which has shown to hinder such a transition in Bangalore (and in other Indian cities). By paying close attention to the operational logics of Swiggy and Zomato, I show how the spatial organisation of work, remuneration patterns and sub-contractualisation of work have all played key roles in fragmenting the workforce. These strategies of platforms were very effective in amplifying already existing socio-cultural fractures, and discouraged and frustrated workers’ efforts to collectively mobilise. Identifying the factors which constrain effective collective mobilisation is perhaps the first step in equipping ourselves to look for tools to blunt platform efforts at fragmenting workers. This could then lead to the providers of ‘essential services’ finding a common language with which to assert their value as enabling the social reproduction of urban life.