The Praxis of Platform Labour

The Relevance of Ethnographic Analyses of Digital Work Cultures

Abstract

The article focuses on an ethnographic analysis of platform-mediated courier work. Participant-observation and digital ethnography are combined in order to gain a more varied insight into these forms of digital work cultures. Contrary to the often stated heteronomy of platform-mediated labour processes, this approach reveals both micro-political agency on the part of the workers, and forms of algorithmic control, which are primarily based on an intentional intransparency of the technological artefacts.