The first section discusses the relationship between technological development and the migrant gig workers, while the second section discusses the effects of algorithmic management of gig workers. The third section discusses the question of migrant belongingness.
2 Technological Development and Migrant Gig Workers
The development of capitalism—from mercantile capitalism to industrial capitalism to informational capitalism—has always produced distinct forms of contradictions in the society, which have contributed to the concrete issues faced by the non-capitalist classes during any particular historical epoch. The platform economy—one of the major planks of contemporary capitalist accumulation—is usually composed of digital platforms which enable their users to share, lend or purchase certain goods or services with an increased access to labour markets (Kilhoffer et al., 2017). The development of platforms has led to a change within the nature of the public spaces and has also, as Huws (2020) argues, resulted in a change within the economic and social relations in the society. The newer kinds of management processes that have erupted with the growth ofplatforms require workers to be logged in all throughout the day to earn bringing in administrative processes focused on the mediating role that online platforms play (Huws, 2016a, 2016b). The growth of such structures of employment remains dictated by market dynamics and affect the structures that govern the market, including local administrative models (Huws, 2020), which has been seen as one of the key markers for determining the nature of urbanism in the society (Deb Roy, 2024b). The development and proliferation of online work cannot be analysed without taking into cognisance the relationship that they share with other broader structures that affect the socio-political and cultural fabric in place (Huws, 1984; Huws et al., 1990).
The growth of platform capitalism does not only change the economic fabric of the society but also changes the broader contours of social and political attitudes towards technology and development. The nature of labour market reflects these changes in the society, and the algorithmic management that is practised in platform-based services convert many of these platforms to electronic sweatshops suitable to exploit cheap labour power (Fernie & Metcalf, 1998). Most platforms have hastened the processes of primitive accumulation—the historical process of divorcing the producer from the product and the means of production and subsistence (Marx, 1867/1976)—and have created the socio-economic circumstances where even within a highly exploitable domain such as gig work, migrant gig workers remain relatively more exploited than native gig workers (Kowalik et al., 2023). A migrant delivery worker from West Bengal who works mostly through ‘Dunzo’ in Bengaluru states:
106
S. D. ROY