Mark Graham is the Professor of Internet Geography at the Oxford Internet Institute in the University of Oxford. He is also a Faculty Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute, a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and an Associate in the University of Oxford’s School of Geography and the Environment. He has published widely in major geography, communications, and urban studies journals, and his work has been covered by the media in dozens of countries. He was recently awarded a European Research Council Starting Grant to lead a team to study ‘knowledge economies’ in Sub-Saharan Africa over five years. This entails looking at the geographies of information production, low-end (digital labor and micro-work) knowledge work, and high-end knowledge work (e.g. bespoke programming and work done in innovation hubs) across Africa.
Rethinking the Economic Geographies of Digital Labor
A global market for digitally-outsourced work now exists. It offers significant benefits and opportunities to those who can find a regular income. But, the global nature of that work also poses significant risks and costs for digital workers around the world. Some of these risks emerge when work is seen as a commodity to be bought and sold, and workers see themselves as individual entrepreneurs. When that is the case, it is rational to exploit co-workers; and many have internalized these visions of individuality, competition and predatory behavior. However, if people see themselves as workers rather than entrepreneurs, then we have more possibilities for workers to collaborate, cooperate, and organize (for instance, by harnessing platform cooperatives) in an attempt to secure better working conditions. This talk argues that instead of seeing digital work as operating in a global, ephemeral, virtual dimension beyond the realm of regulation or worker organization, we can reflect on its real geographies. Doing so reveals virtual sites of strength and solidarity for workers. If we want a world of work built on cooperation rather than competition, we need to build on those sites of strength.