Sociality, Tempo &amp; Flow

Kasera, Joseph; O’Neill, Jacki; Bidwell, Nicola J.

doi:10.1145/2998581.2998582

Cited by 25 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Like others [23], we believe that workplace technology should enable agency, that is it should enhance the users' capacity to act [51], rather than controlling and constraining practice. A number of Prayana's features reflect our concern to support driver and collector agency.…”

Section: Designing For Agencymentioning

confidence: 71%

Prayana

Mehra

Muralidhar

Satija

et al. 2018

Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

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We describe the design of a novel mobile phone-based application for loan management in a resource-constrained setting. In this setting, a social enterprise manages autorickshaw loans for drivers, taking charge of collections. The design was informed by an ethnographic study which revealed how loan management for this financially vulnerable population is a daily struggle, and loan payment is a collaborative achievement between collectors and drivers. However, drivers and collectors have limited resources to-hand for loan management. To address this, we designed Prayana, an intermediated financial management app. Prayana shares the principles of many persuasive technologies, such as education, motivation, nudges, but is designed for users with a range of print, technical, and financial literacies and embodies the core design sensibility of enhancing users' agency. Furthermore, it does not put the onus solely on drivers to better manage their money, instead it aims to enhance the collaborative work of loan management, supporting both the drivers and collectors.

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Section: Designing For Agencymentioning

confidence: 71%

Prayana

Mehra

Muralidhar

Satija

et al. 2018

Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…These forms of ‘frictions’ constitute what Cresswell (2014: 112) calls the ‘grip of worldly encounters’. Along these lines, researchers have begun to highlight the frictions generated when the assumed universality of platform‐mediated logics, technology, and flows of capital interact with local social infrastructures (Peters, 2020; von Vacano, 2021), topography, tempo, and pace (Kasera et al ., 2016; Qadri, 2021), and incumbent actors on the streets of Asian cities (Kumar et al ., 2018; Jack, 2020). These three approaches to friction, analysing its visible, political, and spatially divergent characteristics, make it highly relevant for understanding the dynamics of mobilities and livelihoods of motorbike taxi driver groups in Hanoi.…”

Section: Conceptualising Mobility Frictions Platform Economies and Ur...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Turf wars: The livelihood and mobility frictions of motorbike taxi drivers on Hanoi's streets

Nguyen

Turner

2023

Asia Pacific Viewpoint

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In Vietnam's capital city Hanoi, the growing popularity of application based (app‐based) motorbike taxis has offered many inhabitants new opportunities to pursue a mobile livelihood with ride‐hailing platforms. Nonetheless, as this influx of app‐based drivers has hit the city's streets, specific livelihood and mobility frictions have emerged, notably with informal, ‘traditional’ motorbike taxi drivers, or xe ôm. In this paper we analyse these evolving sites and moments of friction and their impacts on driver livelihoods and mobilities for both driver groups. We draw conceptually on debates regarding mobility, platform economies, and urban livelihoods, while specifically interrogating the concept of friction to highlight three possible analytical applications. Methodologically, we interpret static and ride‐along interviews completed with over 130 drivers. We highlight a range of tactics ‘traditional’ and app‐based motorbike taxi drivers have employed to respond to rising frictions, defend their ‘turf’, and maintain their street‐based livelihoods. Driver responses reveal differing access to distinctive forms of social capital and social networks, and contrasting levels of agency regarding their mobilities. By conceptually teasing apart the notion of friction, we wish to expand and deepen understandings of the experiences of vulnerability, precarity, and other impacts of platformisation for different motorbike taxi driver cohorts.

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“…Ride-hailing has been less extensively studied from a workers' perspective in the Global South (Ahmed et al, 2016;Kasera, O'Neill, and Bidwell, 2016;Kumar, JafarNaimi, and Morshed 2018;Prabhat, Nanavati, and Rangaswamy 2019;Fleitoukh and Toyama, 2020). In one of the earliest studies, Kasera, O'Neill, and Bidwell (2016) noted that the design of P2P platforms like Uber did not fit into the work practices and temporal rhythms of drivers operating shared taxis in Namibia and was therefore not viable for them. In India, Ahmed et al (2016) showed how drivers using Ola had little information on or understanding of central features of their work such as ride allocation, pricing, and evaluation.…”

Section: Working For Ride-hailing Platformsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Negotiating Dependencies and Precarity in the On-Demand Economy

Muralidhar

Bossen

O’Neill

2022

Comput Supported Coop Work

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There is growing evidence of ride-hailing platforms' adverse impact on drivers. Nonetheless, hundreds of thousands of drivers continue to work on these platforms. Why? What considerations propel their continued usage over time? By drawing upon a qualitative study with auto-rickshaw drivers using Ola, a ride-hailing platform similar to Uber in India, we show how Ola over time shapes relations between itself, customers and drivers. The platform adds to the drivers' precarity and provides little benefit, and the platform's customer-centric design often leads to tensions with drivers. We illustrate how this has come about through the impact of ride-hailing platforms on the market: The duopolistic (Uber vs Ola) nature of the urban taxi market in India, paralleled by a shift of more and more customers from street-hailing to app-based hailing over time, has forged new dependencies for drivers on these platforms, which leaves drivers with little choice but to accept them. Thus, drivers continue to work for the platform, not because of any benefits, but because of the 'new dependencies' created by the infrastructuralization of ride-hailing platforms like Ola in the urban transport market. Our findings also reveal some ancillary benefits for drivers from their use of ride-hailing applications as first-time internet/smartphone users. The paper concludes with key implications for regulation as well as platform design that can improve customer-driver interaction as well as make the marketplace fairer, more equitable, and protect drivers' welfare.

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Sociality, Tempo & Flow

Cited by 25 publications

References 15 publications

Prayana

Prayana

Turf wars: The livelihood and mobility frictions of motorbike taxi drivers on Hanoi's streets

Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Negotiating Dependencies and Precarity in the On-Demand Economy

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