PLATFORMISATION FROM THE SOUTH: MAPPING THE EPISTEMOLOGIES AND IMAGINATIONS OF UBER'S INFILTRATION IN BRAZIL
Lead Research Organisation:
London School of Economics and Political Science
Department Name: Media and Communications
Abstract
This study intends to investigate the social, political, cultural and epistemological implications of "platformisation", i.e. the dynamics through which digital platforms' infrastructures, governance and business models infiltrate and re-organize various sectors and spheres of life. This is not a uniform process: as digital platforms expand their reach across the globe, they encounter variable conditions and unexpected local singularities.
The proposed research emphasizes the infrastructural dimension of platformisation and its implications in the Global South by exploring one specific platform, Uber, and its infiltration in Brazil, the platform's largest market outside the U.S. I aim to examine Uber's infrastructural dimension and the ways in which they enable the production of predominantly data-oriented ways of knowing and intervening in heterogeneous territories. In order to achieve that, this proposal operates an approximation between platform studies (van Dijck et al., 2018; Poell et al., 2019), infrastructure studies (Plantin et al., 2018) and Southern perspectives (de Sousa Santos, 2007; Milán & Treré, 2019).
Whereas most studies about Uber's actions in Brazil investigate its role in the precarization and digitalization of labor (Abilio, 2020; Grohmann, 2020), this proposal focuses on Uber's emergence as an "actor in the existing spatial knowledge infrastructure" (Plantin, 2018, p. 494). The concept of "knowledge Infrastructure" describes "an enduring, widely shared sociotechnical system", which "comprise robust networks of people, artifacts, and institutions that generate, share, and maintain specific knowledge about the human and natural worlds" (Edwards, 2010 p.17). My approach will argue that Uber's efforts to datafy territories, mobility patterns and everyday practices produces totalizing epistemologies that empower the platform to globally manage labor and urban dynamics, according to its own private interests.
In datafying territories, Uber produces abstract and homogenizing ways of knowing that extirpate territories of their singularities. This is especially significant for Global South territories, marked by acute inequalities and instabilities. Assessing platformisation from the South can reveal what gets lost when territories, practices and local singularities are abstracted and algorithmically processed, together with limitations of Uber's totalizing aspirations.
I intend to combine two methodological approaches First, the technological and epistemological dimension of platformisation can be mapped through technography (Bucher, 2018). I intend to collect, select and analyse a series of documents and inscriptions produced by Uber, including publications on Uber's official websites and specialized blogs; patent applications; research papers authored or co-authored by Uber's scientists. Secondly, I intend to conduct an ethnographic incursion to explore local negotiations, resistances and appropriations and contrast them with the abstract, objective and totalizing capacities envisioned by Uber. I plan to conduct a series of semi-structured interviews in São Paulo, Brazil, with different social actors including Uber riders and drivers, city representatives, Uber employees, and activists.
This proposal seeks to contribute to the infrastructural turn in media and communication studies (Plantin & Punathambekar, 2018) and to the combination of platform studies and infrastructure studies. I expect to contribute to the analysis of platforms as epistemic actors, and to highlight how they appropriate cities, labor, and everyday practices as part of a laboratory where knowledge is produced and tested; Finally, by investigating platformisation from the South, I expect to articulate alternative epistemologies that allow for other imaginations and possibilities for a future with and beyond digital platforms.
The proposed research emphasizes the infrastructural dimension of platformisation and its implications in the Global South by exploring one specific platform, Uber, and its infiltration in Brazil, the platform's largest market outside the U.S. I aim to examine Uber's infrastructural dimension and the ways in which they enable the production of predominantly data-oriented ways of knowing and intervening in heterogeneous territories. In order to achieve that, this proposal operates an approximation between platform studies (van Dijck et al., 2018; Poell et al., 2019), infrastructure studies (Plantin et al., 2018) and Southern perspectives (de Sousa Santos, 2007; Milán & Treré, 2019).
Whereas most studies about Uber's actions in Brazil investigate its role in the precarization and digitalization of labor (Abilio, 2020; Grohmann, 2020), this proposal focuses on Uber's emergence as an "actor in the existing spatial knowledge infrastructure" (Plantin, 2018, p. 494). The concept of "knowledge Infrastructure" describes "an enduring, widely shared sociotechnical system", which "comprise robust networks of people, artifacts, and institutions that generate, share, and maintain specific knowledge about the human and natural worlds" (Edwards, 2010 p.17). My approach will argue that Uber's efforts to datafy territories, mobility patterns and everyday practices produces totalizing epistemologies that empower the platform to globally manage labor and urban dynamics, according to its own private interests.
In datafying territories, Uber produces abstract and homogenizing ways of knowing that extirpate territories of their singularities. This is especially significant for Global South territories, marked by acute inequalities and instabilities. Assessing platformisation from the South can reveal what gets lost when territories, practices and local singularities are abstracted and algorithmically processed, together with limitations of Uber's totalizing aspirations.
I intend to combine two methodological approaches First, the technological and epistemological dimension of platformisation can be mapped through technography (Bucher, 2018). I intend to collect, select and analyse a series of documents and inscriptions produced by Uber, including publications on Uber's official websites and specialized blogs; patent applications; research papers authored or co-authored by Uber's scientists. Secondly, I intend to conduct an ethnographic incursion to explore local negotiations, resistances and appropriations and contrast them with the abstract, objective and totalizing capacities envisioned by Uber. I plan to conduct a series of semi-structured interviews in São Paulo, Brazil, with different social actors including Uber riders and drivers, city representatives, Uber employees, and activists.
This proposal seeks to contribute to the infrastructural turn in media and communication studies (Plantin & Punathambekar, 2018) and to the combination of platform studies and infrastructure studies. I expect to contribute to the analysis of platforms as epistemic actors, and to highlight how they appropriate cities, labor, and everyday practices as part of a laboratory where knowledge is produced and tested; Finally, by investigating platformisation from the South, I expect to articulate alternative epistemologies that allow for other imaginations and possibilities for a future with and beyond digital platforms.
People |
ORCID iD |
| Ana Gonçalves Guerra (Student) |