Presenter: Dr. Katarzyna Gruszka, postdoc researcher in the Data Society research program at the Faculty of Technology and Society, Malmö University.
Organizer: Department of Human Geography, Stockholm University.

Abstract

In this seminar, I reflect on the core of my research into platform-mediated labor as a sphere of interaction between digitalization, capitalism, and transformation of labor. The point of departure for my inquiries rests in an acknowledgement that platforms are not only digital socio-technical infrastructures that organize heterogeneous markets in contemporary capitalism(s), but they are also a political-economic configurations that breed large scale social transformations. Critical studies from a range of disciplinary fields have been mapping the key issues related to platform-mediated labor. These include flexibilization and individualization of work, issues of fuzzy employment arrangements and employment misclassification, and the precarization and radical responsibilization of platform workers. Scholars also caution that this picture extends to platforms reproducing or exacerbating existing inequalities, often via their digital infrastructure and algorithmic management and control practices. My contribution to the field, the essence of which I wish to share during the seminar, focuses on two areas: 1) the potential of investigating platform-mediated labor through the lens of invisibility; and 2) digital platforms in the domestic services sector (in particular, cleaning in private households), embedded in the context of the crisis of social reproduction.

Recommended readings

Gruszka, K., Pillinger, A., Gerold, S., & Theine, H. (2022). (De) valuation of household cleaning in the platform economy (No. 2022). WU Vienna University of Economics and Business. (Pdf attached)

Gruszka, K., & Böhm, M. (2022). Out of sight, out of mind?(In) visibility of/in platform-mediated work. new media & society, 24(8), 1852-1871. (Pdf attached)

Blog post: Platform Cleaners: And the beat goes on: https://platformlabor.net/blog/platform-cleaners-and-the-beat-goes-on

Biography

Katarzyna Gruszka, PhD, is a postdoc researcher based at Malmö University, at the Data Society research program at the Faculty of Technology and Society. Her main areas of interest can be grouped under the umbrella of digitalization and transformation of labor, and include: platform-mediated labor, platform capitalism, and platform-mediated household work. She is particularly interested in looking at platform-mediated labor via the lens of invisible work, developing an analytical framework for (in)visibility of platform-mediated labor. Her research is set in an interdisciplinary perspective of socioeconomics, political economy, feminist studies of labor. This interdisciplinarity is also reflected in her educational background, including two master’s degrees in humanities, and a PhD in Economics and Social Sciences obtained at the Institute for Ecological Economics at the Department of Socioeconomics at the WU Vienna University of Economics and Business, where she also spent the first years of postdoc time. She works primarily qualitatively and is keen on further development of netnographic inquiries of digital platform infrastructures.