PLATFORM GEOGRAPHIES: ‘GRABBING’ FROM THE OTHER SIDE

Abstract

Platforms have become an important feature in everyday life, providing greater access to otherwise unavailable services and opportunities for work through a digital intermediary. Unlike the traditional mode of accumulation through ownership of the means of production, platforms accumulate by enabling the means of connection. Ride-hailing platforms like Uber, Grab and Gojek highlights the most prominent features of platform capitalism, namely the condition of platform workers framed as both labour and capitalist; as well as the precarious nature of platform work. Much research on platform capitalism has focused on the economic and sociological implications of digital platforms, placing geography as a secondary concern. This thesis seeks to bring a geographical perspective to the study of platform capitalism by explicating the formation of platforms situated in their spatial contexts and how the platform also shapes a geography that affects the everyday lives of platform workers. By establishing the conceptual framework of platform geographies, the relational dynamics between the platform, the workers and the interface will be examined to uncover the social and spatial processes in platform capitalism. Drawing upon a process-based methodological framework that employs autoethnography, semi-structured interviews and participant observation, this thesis wish to reveal the material outcomes of work in the face of platform capitalism and highlight the private-hire drivers in Singapore perform their work. While platform workers are subjected to platform affects on the platform, they are not passive subjects of platform capitalism but are as active geographical actors in shaping platform geographies.