Landscapes of precarious labour
On the long prehistory and contingent future of digital platforms
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 24224923 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Moritz Altenried (0000-0001-7152-335X, Berlin University Alliance (Berlin, Germany)), Mira Wallis (0009-0006-3613-6040) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 81 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 535-546 |
| Publication date | 2026-09-30 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Geographica Helvetica (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0016-7312 • E-ISSN: 2194-8798 |
| Publisher | Copernicus GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.5194/gh-81-535-2026 |
| OpenAlex | W7214922067 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 39 |
Digital platforms are commonly portrayed as innovative technology-driven disruptors. This paper challenges such claims of novelty by situating digital platforms within broader historical and contemporary landscapes of precarious labour. It highlights four central elements that form part of the labour model of platforms – home-based labour, piece wages, day labour, and labour intermediaries – and traces pre-digital historical moments in which these elements played a significant role. By revisiting these selected instances in the history of precarious labour, the paper aims to contribute to a critical genealogy of digital platforms. Such a genealogy situates digital platforms in a long history of contingent labour that is deeply intertwined with histories of migrant and feminized labour, where precarity and instability have historically been the norm. Overall, such a perspective sharpens our conceptual understanding of platforms and the ways in which they adapt, reconfigure, and radicalize historical techniques, structures, and practices for organizing labour. The paper concludes by outlining implications for future analyses and critiques of and regulatory approaches to platform labour.
day labor · digital platforms · employment intermediaries · Labor history · migrant labour · platform regulation · platform work · precarious employment · Digital Economy and Work Transformation · Employment, Labor, and Gender Studies · Legal and Labor Studies
The Fight Against Platform Capitalism
Arbeitswelt an der Wasserkante
Logged labour
Media genealogy
Working Without Borders
The global gig economy
Towards ‘bogus employment?’ The contradictory outcomes of ride-hailing regulation in Berlin, Lisbon and Paris
Feminist global political economies of work and social reproduction
Outsourcing Domestic Work in the Crisis of Social Reproduction
On (And Off) the Waterfront
Contradictions of Capital and Care
Subcontracting and low pay kill
San Precario
The resurgence of gig work
The Making of the Kelly Girl
Racial platform capitalism
Contingent Chicago
Mobile workers, contingent labour
The Hassle of Housework
Risky business
Precarity as a Political Concept, or, Fordism as Exception
| Highly cited | No |
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