Gianluca Iazzolino
Biographic Data
| ID | 77744 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Gianluca Iazzolino |
| GIVEN NAMES | Gianluca |
| FAMILY NAME | Iazzolino |
| SIGNATURE | IAZZOLINO G |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Manchester |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4153-1521 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 44 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 15 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Variegated informalities in the globalization of platform work
The globalization of platform work has had variegated effects on working conditions. However, the dichotomy between formal employment and informal economic activities still dominates academic research and policymaking. This division reiterates a colonial matrix of thought by taking the formal employment regime as developed during the 20th century in the Global North as a worldwide standard, while grouping together multifarious working conditions …
The Algorithmic–Bureaucratic Precarization of Migrant Food Delivery Workers in Italy
Our article uses a socio-legal lens to examine the construction of precarity among migrant food delivery workers in Turin, Italy. We argue that the Italian migration system, and the way it is implemented, narrows the range of sources of income, and pushes migrants into a condition of liminal legality, formatting the malleable workforce upon which food delivery platforms deploy their biopower. We thus suggest that the commodification of migrant la…
Prediction and data curation in digital humanitarianism
Our article contributes to debates on critical humanitarianism and critical dataset studies by examining the praxis of digital humanitarianism and the entanglement between what we know and how we know human suffering in large-scale disasters. We specifically focus on the “data work” carried out by various professionals in creating and curating datasets used by humanitarian actors to address both current and future crises. In doing so, we explore …
Navigating Precarity Between Law and Profit
This article examines how platform‐mediated food delivery work shapes the socio‐economic inclusion and exclusion of migrants in Italy, Poland, and Spain. Drawing on 60 in‐depth interviews with migrant riders in Turin, Warsaw, and Barcelona, the study adopts a comparative ethnographic approach to examine how distinct regulatory models—Italy’s “dual‐track,” Poland’s “contractual bricolage,” and Spain’s “regulated exclusion”—shape migrant inclusion …
Trading Efficiency for Control
This paper contributes to the discussions on AI initiatives applied to migration management by drawing attention to critical issues in the AI systems field. It suggests a research agenda to investigate how AI-generated insights inform policies and how ideologies are reflected into policies and shape AI deployments. Specifically, this paper leverages the data justice and algorithmic accountability debates to examine two application of AI systems. …
The political economy of connectivity in the Somali Horn of Africa
This article focuses on the political economy of connectivity in the Somali Horn of Africa (HoA). On the one hand, it charts the emergence of firms in Somalia and Somaliland at the intersection of telecommunication and finance, eventually controlling logistics through digital platforms that enable the circulation of people, goods and value across the region. On the other, it examines the historical and political elements that have shaped a peculi…
Gaming the System
Our article explores how migrant food delivery couriers work around platform algorithmic control to argue that gaming the system is a form of everyday resistance. Drawing on data collected in Turin, Italy, between August 2020 and June 2021, we examine how, on the one hand, through gamification, food delivery platforms construct the couriers as entrepreneurial and productive subjects; on the other hand, we show that the disarticulation and repurpo…
Going Karura
Based on an ethnography of Uber drivers in Nairobi, my article explores practices of contestation of the gig economy taking place both in the digital and physical space of the city. It argues that the labour struggle against the price policies and the control mechanisms of ride-hailing platforms such as Uber foregrounds the tension between a subjectification from above, in which the platforms construct the drivers as independent contractors and t…
From Development State to Corporate Leviathan
While there is growing literature on the role of platforms in concentrating market power, this article centres on their role in 'performing' economic theory. As infrastructures that measure, monitor and ultimately compel human behaviour, the authors argue that digital platforms should be understood as 'performative infrastructures' that seek to incorporate informal populations by compelling behaviour in line with certain theoretical and commercia…
Power geometries of encampment. The reproduction of domination and marginality among Somali refugees in Kakuma
Beyond Eastleigh
This chapter examines why, and how, in the past years Uganda has become at the same time a safe haven in troubled times and a place where many Somalian refugees wait for resettlement to a third country, advance their education, manage their business in the region and closely follow Somalia’s winding path to recovery.
Shelter from the storm
Recent years have seen a dramatic increase in the Somali population in Uganda. This spike reflects a new development in the history of Somali mobility in East Africa, shaped both by crises and by opportunities, from which sophisticated transnational and translocal strategies have emerged. In this article, we draw attention to these strategies to understand continuity and change in Somali migrant networks in Kampala, highlighting the dual signific…
New media and governance in conflict
The role of new media in shaping the interactions of formal and informal leaders with their audiences is frequently misunderstood and often narrowly focussed on electoral processes and political competition. By weaving together strands of scholarship on political communication and political settlement while engaging with concepts of hybrid governance and leadership more prevalent in the African studies literature, this article takes a different, …
Between Somaliland and Puntland
Digital Shahid – From Broadcast Media to Citizen Journalism in Palestine
In January 2007, a video a few minutes long sparked stark outrage in Israel. At first it circulated on the Internet and soon after was broadcast by several TV channels around the world. It showed a woman from the Jewish settlement of Tel Rumeida, in the Old City of Hebron, West Bank, cursing a young Palestinian girl. The woman, later identified as Yifat Alkobi, was one of the 500 radical settlers dwelling in the heart of one of the most volatile …
From Development State to Corporate Leviathan
While there is growing literature on the role of platforms in concentrating market power, this article centres on their role in 'performing' economic theory. As infrastructures that measure, monitor and ultimately compel human behaviour, the authors argue that digital platforms should be understood as 'performative infrastructures' that seek to incorporate informal populations by compelling behaviour in line with certain theoretical and commercia…
Going Karura
Based on an ethnography of Uber drivers in Nairobi, my article explores practices of contestation of the gig economy taking place both in the digital and physical space of the city. It argues that the labour struggle against the price policies and the control mechanisms of ride-hailing platforms such as Uber foregrounds the tension between a subjectification from above, in which the platforms construct the drivers as independent contractors and t…
Shelter from the storm
Recent years have seen a dramatic increase in the Somali population in Uganda. This spike reflects a new development in the history of Somali mobility in East Africa, shaped both by crises and by opportunities, from which sophisticated transnational and translocal strategies have emerged. In this article, we draw attention to these strategies to understand continuity and change in Somali migrant networks in Kampala, highlighting the dual signific…
Gaming the System
Our article explores how migrant food delivery couriers work around platform algorithmic control to argue that gaming the system is a form of everyday resistance. Drawing on data collected in Turin, Italy, between August 2020 and June 2021, we examine how, on the one hand, through gamification, food delivery platforms construct the couriers as entrepreneurial and productive subjects; on the other hand, we show that the disarticulation and repurpo…
The political economy of connectivity in the Somali Horn of Africa
This article focuses on the political economy of connectivity in the Somali Horn of Africa (HoA). On the one hand, it charts the emergence of firms in Somalia and Somaliland at the intersection of telecommunication and finance, eventually controlling logistics through digital platforms that enable the circulation of people, goods and value across the region. On the other, it examines the historical and political elements that have shaped a peculi…
Power geometries of encampment. The reproduction of domination and marginality among Somali refugees in Kakuma
Trading Efficiency for Control
This paper contributes to the discussions on AI initiatives applied to migration management by drawing attention to critical issues in the AI systems field. It suggests a research agenda to investigate how AI-generated insights inform policies and how ideologies are reflected into policies and shape AI deployments. Specifically, this paper leverages the data justice and algorithmic accountability debates to examine two application of AI systems. …
Digital Shahid – From Broadcast Media to Citizen Journalism in Palestine
In January 2007, a video a few minutes long sparked stark outrage in Israel. At first it circulated on the Internet and soon after was broadcast by several TV channels around the world. It showed a woman from the Jewish settlement of Tel Rumeida, in the Old City of Hebron, West Bank, cursing a young Palestinian girl. The woman, later identified as Yifat Alkobi, was one of the 500 radical settlers dwelling in the heart of one of the most volatile …
New media and governance in conflict
The role of new media in shaping the interactions of formal and informal leaders with their audiences is frequently misunderstood and often narrowly focussed on electoral processes and political competition. By weaving together strands of scholarship on political communication and political settlement while engaging with concepts of hybrid governance and leadership more prevalent in the African studies literature, this article takes a different, …
Between Somaliland and Puntland
Beyond Eastleigh
This chapter examines why, and how, in the past years Uganda has become at the same time a safe haven in troubled times and a place where many Somalian refugees wait for resettlement to a third country, advance their education, manage their business in the region and closely follow Somalia’s winding path to recovery.
Shelter from the storm
Recent years have seen a dramatic increase in the Somali population in Uganda. This spike reflects a new development in the history of Somali mobility in East Africa, shaped both by crises and by opportunities, from which sophisticated transnational and translocal strategies have emerged. In this article, we draw attention to these strategies to understand continuity and change in Somali migrant networks in Kampala, highlighting the dual signific…
Power geometries of encampment. The reproduction of domination and marginality among Somali refugees in Kakuma
From Development State to Corporate Leviathan
While there is growing literature on the role of platforms in concentrating market power, this article centres on their role in 'performing' economic theory. As infrastructures that measure, monitor and ultimately compel human behaviour, the authors argue that digital platforms should be understood as 'performative infrastructures' that seek to incorporate informal populations by compelling behaviour in line with certain theoretical and commercia…
Gaming the System
Our article explores how migrant food delivery couriers work around platform algorithmic control to argue that gaming the system is a form of everyday resistance. Drawing on data collected in Turin, Italy, between August 2020 and June 2021, we examine how, on the one hand, through gamification, food delivery platforms construct the couriers as entrepreneurial and productive subjects; on the other hand, we show that the disarticulation and repurpo…
Going Karura
Based on an ethnography of Uber drivers in Nairobi, my article explores practices of contestation of the gig economy taking place both in the digital and physical space of the city. It argues that the labour struggle against the price policies and the control mechanisms of ride-hailing platforms such as Uber foregrounds the tension between a subjectification from above, in which the platforms construct the drivers as independent contractors and t…
The political economy of connectivity in the Somali Horn of Africa
This article focuses on the political economy of connectivity in the Somali Horn of Africa (HoA). On the one hand, it charts the emergence of firms in Somalia and Somaliland at the intersection of telecommunication and finance, eventually controlling logistics through digital platforms that enable the circulation of people, goods and value across the region. On the other, it examines the historical and political elements that have shaped a peculi…
Prediction and data curation in digital humanitarianism
Our article contributes to debates on critical humanitarianism and critical dataset studies by examining the praxis of digital humanitarianism and the entanglement between what we know and how we know human suffering in large-scale disasters. We specifically focus on the “data work” carried out by various professionals in creating and curating datasets used by humanitarian actors to address both current and future crises. In doing so, we explore …
Navigating Precarity Between Law and Profit
This article examines how platform‐mediated food delivery work shapes the socio‐economic inclusion and exclusion of migrants in Italy, Poland, and Spain. Drawing on 60 in‐depth interviews with migrant riders in Turin, Warsaw, and Barcelona, the study adopts a comparative ethnographic approach to examine how distinct regulatory models—Italy’s “dual‐track,” Poland’s “contractual bricolage,” and Spain’s “regulated exclusion”—shape migrant inclusion …
Trading Efficiency for Control
This paper contributes to the discussions on AI initiatives applied to migration management by drawing attention to critical issues in the AI systems field. It suggests a research agenda to investigate how AI-generated insights inform policies and how ideologies are reflected into policies and shape AI deployments. Specifically, this paper leverages the data justice and algorithmic accountability debates to examine two application of AI systems. …
Variegated informalities in the globalization of platform work
The globalization of platform work has had variegated effects on working conditions. However, the dichotomy between formal employment and informal economic activities still dominates academic research and policymaking. This division reiterates a colonial matrix of thought by taking the formal employment regime as developed during the 20th century in the Global North as a worldwide standard, while grouping together multifarious working conditions …
The Algorithmic–Bureaucratic Precarization of Migrant Food Delivery Workers in Italy
Our article uses a socio-legal lens to examine the construction of precarity among migrant food delivery workers in Turin, Italy. We argue that the Italian migration system, and the way it is implemented, narrows the range of sources of income, and pushes migrants into a condition of liminal legality, formatting the malleable workforce upon which food delivery platforms deploy their biopower. We thus suggest that the commodification of migrant la…
Political science (10 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Economics (7 works) · Law (5 works) · Digital Economy and Work Transformation (4 works) · Political economy (4 works) · Politics (4 works) · Computer Science (3 works) · Employment and Welfare Studies (3 works) · Gender Studies (3 works)