{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"ce325a04-5bc9-4819-a776-439d90410b32","title":"Migrant Labour in the Gig Economy The Intersection of Migrant Labour, Platform Capitalism, and Resistance","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9783031912610","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"ce325a04-5bc9-4819-a776-439d90410b32","id":"ce325a04-5bc9-4819-a776-439d90410b32","uuid":"ce325a04-5bc9-4819-a776-439d90410b32","title":"Migrant Labour in the Gig Economy The Intersection of Migrant Labour, Platform Capitalism, and Resistance","normalized_title":"migrantlabourinthegigeconomytheintersectionofmigrantlabourplatformcapitalismandresistance","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9783031912610","isbns":["9783031912610","9783031912627"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":270,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/ce325a04-5bc9-4819-a776-439d90410b32","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Migrant%20Labour%20in%20the%20Gig%20Economy%20The%20Intersection%20of%20Migrant%20Labour%2C%20Platform%20Capitalism%2C%20and%20Resistance","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/ce325a04-5bc9-4819-a776-439d90410b32/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/ce325a04-5bc9-4819-a776-439d90410b32/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/ce325a04-5bc9-4819-a776-439d90410b32","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/ce325a04-5bc9-4819-a776-439d90410b32/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/ce325a04-5bc9-4819-a776-439d90410b32/search"},"page":{"printed_page":85,"pdf_page":99,"physical_index":99,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"c361099dc0a9ac0ffeb41799f14968bfddb78161471751a7ba6a759025d1789b"},"chapter":"Dynamics ofVirtual Work","content":"Against this background, we put forth the concept of “bindingflexibility” as an alternative to “coercive flexibility”. The latter risks overshadowing the subjectivity of workers in the decision-making process. In accordance with Burawoy (1979), contemporary management is dedicated to achieving consensus among workers to enhance productivity using gamification, rather than resorting to coercive measures. This condition appears to be well-suited to addressing the app-based food delivery sector, particularly in consideration of the “illusion of choice” that algorithmic management provides in the performance of the job. In other words, the range of choices available to couriers is constrained by (bound to) the possibilities offered by the digital platform. Furthermore, the term “binding” allows for a more comprehensive and diverse range of elements to be included in the analysis. While the term coercive flexibility effectively identifies the concrete forms of app-based food delivery work and the asymmetrical power relationships between the actors involved, bindingflexibility helps binding together aspects that, at first glance, appear to be unrelated to food delivery work and couriers’ decision-making processes.\n\nHowever, gig workers can use tactics to partially reduce the digital platforms’ disciplinary control, which involve trade-offs: «Temporal tradeoffs help the workers make time better fit their needs and to construct meanings around their temporality without posing structural challenges to the dominant temporal order» (Chen & Sun, 2020, p. 1564).\n\nThe concept of “binding-flexibility” can be understood in relation to the idealistic discourse of the sharing economy (Schor, 2020), that is, the narrative promoted by digital platforms regarding horizontal organisational relationships and the possibility of working as a self-entrepreneur, according to a mythical autonomy (Lata et al., 2023). The categorisation of workers as either supplementary earners or platform-dependent earners (Schor, 2020) is useful to comprehend the concept of binding-flexibility as well. The former refers to those who embrace the idealistic discourse because they are not directly dependent on the activities associated with it and are more satisfied by this “independence”. The latter group, on the other hand, derives most of their earnings from the sharing economy and is subject to the performance pressure resulting from rankings and the need to constantly search for tasks to perform. Additionally, there are those who fall somewhere in between these two groups. Besides, a full deployment of binding-flexibility can be reached tying it to the concept of “sticky labour”, as it emphasises the subjugation of the workers to the digital platforms’ managerial model of control (Sun et al., 2021). This encompasses the constant monitoring of workers through data produced while being logged and online with the smartphone, the induced necessity to work in the so-called diamond hours.\n\n4 DELIVERING IN THE LAGOON. CRITICAL REFLECTIONS\n\n85","previous_page":84,"next_page":86}