The symposium intends to compare the experience of platform workers through that of the emblematic figures of passenger app drivers and couriers–meals and food shopping.

Contributions from interested parties would be welcome, amongst other angles, on:

• situated case studies exploring the epistemology of their approach to research in this area;
• the comparison and circulation of objects, norms, regulations and practices of platform work, as well as the evolution of platform business models from the perspective of their reception in national contexts, notably starting with experiences in the South;
• the nature of a “platform capitalism” including, to follow one hypothesis, the degree to which it should be understood from the angle of racialization and its articulation with other social relations (gender, class, etc.);
• the study of grey zones, the social spaces of work and employment transformations and recompositions that are brought about by platform work and their comparison of national experiences between North and South;
• the application of epistemologies of comparison, including a reflection on inter- and trans-disciplinarity, conceived in their “globality”.

Theoretical contributions on paradigms to provide adequate concepts and categories for new or renewed conditions produced by platform work in the North and in the South are also welcome.

What epistemplogy(ies) are necessary to study platform work?

This symposium is organized by the ANR research projet Regreyz&Co « Grey zones and Territory: Transformation of work and the emerging figure of Platform Worker. A France-Brazil comparison » (CNRS/FAPESP), in partnership with l’Université Paris-Est Créteil and the Law Faculty at Universidade de Paraná, Curitiba.