Out of the Standard. Towards a Global Approach to Platform Labour

Abstract

This chapter challenges a taken-for-granted split in the platform critical studies: the analysis of platform labour in terms of informalization in the Global North and in terms of formalization in the Global South. Far from totally denying regional specificities in the territorialization of platform capitalism, the author tries to build a bridge between contexts defining a common logic operating through conjunctural geographies: the specific labour process implemented by platforms requires an active engagement by living labour in terms of self-entrepreneurship. This engagement can be produced through the disruption of standard labour as well as through the commodification of informal labour. In both cases, workers have to deal with an acquired dependence from the platform infrastructure. This logic, nevertheless, does not preclude the possibility to overturn self-entrepreneurialism into resistances and exit strategies.