The SAGE Handbook of Digital Labour, edited by Ergin Bulut, Julie Chen, Kylie Jarrett, and CLCF Co-Director Rafael Grohmann, is out! Check it out:

Description

The Sage Handbook of Digital Labour is a comprehensive exploration of the multifaceted and evolving concept of digital labour. Originally coined in Marxist analyses to explain the exploitation of user data in the digital economy, the term has since expanded to encompass a wide range of paid work influenced by digital technologies. This includes traditional jobs transformed by platforms, new roles emerging in today’s digital society, and cultural producers like influencers and online creators. The handbook also addresses the material aspects of digital labour, highlighting its dependence on traditional manufacturing and manual labour.

This volume brings together leading scholars from diverse disciplines to examine the intersections of labour and digital technologies. It approaches digital labour as an interdisciplinary field of inquiry, exploring the material and ideological conditions of work in contemporary society. The handbook aims to chart the extensive territory of digital labour studies, covering theoretical traditions, key concepts, emblematic sites of production, normative cultures, and worker subjectivities. It also showcases the spectrum of worker organizing repertoires and tactics across the world.

The handbook is organized into seven sections. Section 1 highlights major theoretical traditions, while Section 2 focuses on the material sites along production chains. Sections 3 and 4 delve into key concepts and sites of production, and Section 5 explores normative cultures and worker subjectivities. Section 6 examines worker organizing tactics, and Section 7 introduces research methods for scholars in the field. The volume concludes with discussions on how digital labour studies can provide unique perspectives to imagine digital futures.

Part 1: Theoretical Traditions

Part 2: Material Sites of Production

Part 3: Key Concepts in Digital Labour

Part 4: Emblematic Sites of Production

Part 5: Normative Cultures and Worker Subjectivities

Part 6: Worker Organizing Repertoires and Tactics

Part 7: Research Methods in Digital Labour Studies

Table of Contents

Authors Chapter
Ergin Bulut; Julie Yujie Chen; Rafael Grohmann; Kylie Jarrett Introduction: Digital Labour as a Field of Inquiry

Section One: Foundations of Digital Labour

Authors Chapter
Ergin Bulut; Julie Yujie Chen; Rafael Grohmann; Kylie Jarrett Section One Introduction
Marcos Dantas Chapter 1: Globalization and Information Work
Ned Rossiter; Soenke Zehle Chapter 2: The Social Factory of Data Capitalism: Cybernetics, Logistics, Labour
Nicole Cohen Chapter 3: Digital Labour, Precarity, and Employment Status: Continuity Through Change
Aphra Kerr; Marguerite Barry Chapter 4: Retooling ethics for a critical and just digital future
Sareeta Amrute Chapter 5: Race, Digital Labor, and Gig: Concepts, Histories, and Solidarities for the Why (and How) We Study Race
Mayo Fuster Morell Chapter 6: Platform Work and Gender Equality

Section Two: Digital Labour Infrastructures

Authors Chapter
Ergin Bulut; Julie Yujie Chen; Rafael Grohmann; Kylie Jarrett Section Two Introduction
Abel Guerra Chapter 7: An Infrastructural Optic to Digital Labour
Evelyn Wan Chapter 8: Mining for Digital Culture: Dispossessed lives through the lens of art
Paola Ricaurte Chapter 9: Data centers and labor politics: Political economy, geopolitics, and narratives of labor
Prince K. Guma Chapter 10: Materialities of Everyday Digital Labour
Melissa Mazmanian; Maggie Jack; Ingrid Erickson Chapter 11: The Rise of Independent Work and the Challenges of Realizing Autonomy
Mira Wallis; Manuela Bojadzijev; Moritz Altenried Chapter 12: Platform Mobilities: Migration and Digital Labor

Section Three: Labour Transformations

Authors Chapter
Ergin Bulut; Julie Yujie Chen; Rafael Grohmann; Kylie Jarrett Section Three Introduction
Harry Pitts Chapter 13: Value Struggles in Digital Taylorism: Scientific Management and Social Mediation
Yu Huang Chapter 14: Rethinking Industrial Automation: Marxist Perspective
Fabricio Barili Chapter 15: Dynamics of surveillance: Unveiling Surveillance in Workspaces and Work Management
Uma Rani; Raghav Mehrotra; Sona Mewati Chapter 16: Redefining skills in a digital age: Fragmentation and underutilization
Phoebe Moore; Gwendolin Barnard Chapter 17: Affective computing, algorithmic affect management, and the quantified worker
Aneesh Aneesh; Shiv Issar Chapter 18: Labor’s Odyssey Through Algorithmic Systems
Niels van Doorn; Aaron Shapiro Chapter 19: Studying the gig economy ‘beyond the gig’: A research agenda

Section Four: Sites of Production

Authors Chapter
Ergin Bulut; Julie Yujie Chen; Rafael Grohmann; Kylie Jarrett Section Four Introduction
Sai Amulya Komarraju Chapter 20: Digital Labour Platforms and the Future of Care Work(ers)
Roseli Figaro; Claudia Nonato Chapter 21: Platformization and digitalization of journalists’ work in Brazil
Mary L. Gray; Saiph Savage Chapter 22: Designing for Global Data Work
Jin Lee; Crystal Abidin Chapter 23: Silver Halmeoni Influencers in the Social Media Spotlight: Navigating Geriatric Cuteness, Labor, and Ageism
Lorena Caminhas Chapter 24: Digital sex work and the contested boundaries of material and immaterial digital labour
Antonio Casilli Chapter 25: Digital labor and the inconspicuous production of artificial intelligence
Eric Florence; Juan Sebastian Carbonell Chapter 26: Digitalisation and resistance in logistics work
Kenzo Soares Seto Chapter 27: Navigating the Sociotechnical Imaginaries of Brazilian Tech Workers

Section Five: Organisational Cultures

Authors Chapter
Ergin Bulut; Julie Yujie Chen; Rafael Grohmann; Kylie Jarrett Section Five Introduction
Godwin Simon; Kevin Sanson Chapter 28: Seed Sowing in Nollywood: Labour, Precariousness, and the Promises of the Streaming Video Market in Nigeria
Renyi Hong Chapter 29: The Pain of Love: Passionate Work and Spousal Support as Digital Labor
Christine H. Tran Chapter 30: Play-at-Home Jobs: A Critical Feminist Viewership of Labour, Leisure & Livestreaming on Twitch
Cheryll Soriano Chapter 31: Qualculative practices of ‘hustle’ in platform labor
Ana Alacovska Chapter 32: The life/work mishmash in platform labour: Towards a livelihood approach
Tugce Bidav

Chapter 33: Professional Identity Formation of Social Media Creators

Amir Anwar Chapter 34: Digital Labour and Uneven Developments

Section Six: Workers’ Organising

Authors Chapter
Ergin Bulut; Julie Yujie Chen; Rafael Grohmann; Kylie Jarrett Section Six Introduction
Kurt Vandaele Chapter 35: Unionisation of digital labour
Lilly Irani Chapter 36: Turkopticon: From Software to Organizing (2009-2024)
Noopur Raval Chapter 37: New Realms, New Responses: Alternative Worker Collectivization after Platforms
Denise Kasparian; Sain Lopez-Perez Chapter 38: Cooperatives for Worker Empowerment in the Digital Economy

Section Seven: Researching Digital Labour

Authors Chapter
Ergin Bulut; Julie Yujie Chen; Rafael Grohmann; Kylie Jarrett Section Seven Introduction
Oguz Alyanak, Alessio Bertolini, Funda Ustek-Spilda, Jonas Valente, Robbie Warin, Mark Graham Chapter 39: Action-Research: The Fairwork Project
Callum Cant; Zeynap Karlidag; Clark McAllister; George Briley; Dante Philp Chapter 40: Workers’ Inquiry: A User’s Guide
Kruskaya Hidalgo Cordero Chapter 41: Código Doméstico in the flesh: Feminist oral history methodologies for digital care work research
Tiziano Bonini; Emiliano Trere Chapter 42: Confronting methodological and ethical challenges in the study of algorithms and digital labour
Arturo Arriagada; Vanessa Richter Chapter 43: Exploring Imaginaries on Digital Labour
Vera Khovanskaya Chapter 44: Worker Advocacy and Data Collection: Methodological Sensibilities for Studying Digitally Mediated Work
Ergin Bulut; Julie Yujie Chen; Rafael Grohmann; Kylie Jarrett Conclusion: Digital Futures
Rafael Grohmann

CLCF Co-Director & Assistant Professor

Rafael Grohmann is a Co-lead and Co-Director of the Creative Labour and Critical Futures (CLCF) cluster and an Assistant Professor of Media Studies (Critical Platform Studies) at the University of Toronto. Rafael is the leader of the DigiLabour initiative and founding editor of the Platforms & Society journal.