Entrepreneurial Solidarities: Social Media Collectives and Filipino Digital Platform Workers

Abstract

The article examines the role of social media groups for online freelance workers in the Philippines—digital workers obtaining “gigs” from online labor platforms such as Upwork and Onlinejobs.ph—for social facilitation and collective organizing. The article first problematizes labor marginality in the context of online freelance platform workers situated in the middle of competing narratives of precarity and opportunity. We then examine unique forms of solidarity emerging from social media groups formed by these geographically spread digital workers. Drawing from participant observation in online freelance Facebook groups, as well as interviews and focus groups with 31 online freelance workers located in the cities of Manila, Cebu, and Davao, we found that online Filipino freelancers maintain active social interaction and exchange that can be construed as “entrepreneurial solidarities.” These solidarities are characterized by competing discourses of ambiguity, precarity, opportunity, and adaptation that are articulated and visualized through ambient socialities. While we argue that these entrepreneurial solidarities do not reflect a passive and simplistic acceptance of neoliberal discourses about digital labor by digital workers, the solidarities forged in these groups also work to undermine their resistive potential such that these tend to reinforce rather than impose pressure toward critical structural changes that can improve the viability of digital labor conditions.

Introduction: Marginality and Social Media

“…Every article in this collection focuses on a population that is significantly under-represented in scholarly research more generally. Populations of study include people of color (Davis, this issue; Smith et al, this issue), refugees (Udwan et al, this issue), LGBTQ + people (Birnholtz et al, this issue), people with disabilities (Trevisan, this issue), indigenous people (Carlson & Frazer, this issue; Lupien, this issue; Richez et al, this issue), and people from the Global South (Birnholtz et al, this issue; Soriano & Cabañes, this issue). Although social media have many limitations (centralized corporate control, limited reach to some parts of the world, and financial barriers to entry, to name just a few), the possibility to expand populations of study through techniques like observation, asynchronous participation, and flexible interview scheduling was embraced by most in this collection.…”

“…In this special issue, it is notable that the majority of manuscripts employ qualitative methods, including interviews (Birnholtz et al, this issue; Carlson & Frazer, this issue; Lupien, this issue; Soriano & Cabañes, this issue; Udwan et al, this issue; focus groups [Trevisan, this issue], and discourse analysis [Davis, this issue]). Qualitative methods have long been the dominant method used in the study of marginalized groups (Barron, 1999), partially because of the nature of questions of marginality as well as the possibility of elevating voices of the marginalized.…”

“…These new concepts can be operationalized and tested to develop predictive theories; they also signpost issues deserving of additional research, inviting future scholars into conversation, and theory development. In this issue, for example, Soriano and Cabañes’ (this issue) construct of entrepreneurial solidarities captures key digital worker concerns and their implications for the worker experience. Coe and Griffin’s (this issue) four-part marginalized identity invocation framework articulates the tactics and consequences of highlighting marginalized identities as political strategy.…”

“…Sometimes, researchers themselves are members of the populations they study, putting them at risk of secondary trauma as they collect and analyze data and, possibly, primary trauma when they visit field sites where they too are in harm’s way. Furthermore, research with marginalized populations is often more challenging, with time spent arranging accommodations for participants with, for example, limited communication ability, for example, Trevisan (this issue), unpredictable schedules, for example, Soriano and Cabañes (this issue), or unreliable access to communication technology, for example, Udwan et al (this issue). These forms of labor are infrequently acknowledged and certainly do not typically factor into conversations about academic publishing or research ethics.…”

“…There has been a long-standing theme in scholarship at the intersection of marginalization and digital technology that highlights the double-edged nature of being online, particularly for individuals from marginalized groups. For example, Birnholtz et al (this issue) identify this in their discussion of gay men in India using spatial location apps; Soriano and Cabañes (this issue) reference this in their discussion of Filipino gig workers reinforcing a sense of entrepreneurial solidarity over Facebook. Indeed, again and again, we see the benefits and the risks that come with the heightened visibility of being online.…”