Platforms as if people mattered
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2048978 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Shuang L Frost (0000-0001-7428-8527, Harvard University Press, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 7 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 134-146 |
| Publication date | 2020-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Economic Anthropology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2330-4847 • E-ISSN: 2330-4847 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1002/sea2.12162 |
| OpenAlex | W2978582256 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 7 |
| References cited | 14 |
In his 1973 bookSmall Is Beautiful, economist E. F. Schumacher observed that an ascendant ideology of "bigger is better" industrialism was driving humans to become the servants of machines. "If technology is felt to be becoming more and more inhuman," he reflected, "we might do well to consider whether it is possible to have something better-a technology with a human face." Taking up Schumacher's call, this article considers the possibility of "small" digital platforms in the context of China's contemporary ride-hailing industry. Through an ethnographic study of V Taxi, a grassroots community of taxi drivers, it explores how a human-centric platform for transportation services emerged, developed, and survived in a rapidly shifting economic and political landscape. The beauty and resilience of this platform lie in its ability to harness local social networks, enabling individual actors to share economic opportunities, skills, and knowledge. Through these practices of sharing, V Taxi members produce relational value, which strengthens community bonds. Drawing upon analytic frameworks from economic anthropology in conjunction with insights from science and technology studies, this article argues that "small" digital platforms can empower economic actors by enabling the production of relational value, thus protecting human agency and expanding human capabilities
Actor–network theory · Ethnography · Grassroots · Ideology · Political science · Politics · Psychological resilience · Social science · Sociology · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance · Digital Economy and Work Transformation · Law · Sharing Economy and Platforms
Hankow
A Handbook of Economic Anthropology
Do Artifacts Have Politics
Skilled Visions
Markets of Dispossession
The Gift
Thrown under the bus and outrunning it! The logic of Didi and taxi drivers’ labour and activism in the on-demand economy
Devaluing Human Labor
Upon Opening the Black Box and Finding It Empty
Toward An Anthropological Theory of Value
Guerrilla Workfare
| Unique citing works | 7 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,4 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2026 (6) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 6 |