Oxford Digital Ethnography Group Seminar Series

Freedom, Precarity, and Debt: Ethnographic Research on Platform-Based Taxi Drivers and Food Delivery Riders in China

About

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2018 and 2022 in a small city in southern China, this research challenges existing theories on platform work and destabilises Eurocentric critiques of neoliberalism. Studies on platform work are often characterised by concerns about platform capitalism and the flexibilization of platform-based labour regimes. These studies emphasise how individuals drawn to platform work in pursuit of freedom often find themselves subjected to increased algorithmic control, labour precaritisation, and livelihood insecurity, contributing to a ‘dark anthropology’ of platform work (Ortner, 2016). However, existing theories fail to explain why, despite its inherent control and precarity, 27% of the Chinese workforce participates in platform work, including over one billion registered ride-hailing drivers and more than thirteen million food delivery riders.

By focusing on platform workers’ lived experiences, this research argues that labour precarity has long been the norm, rather than a novelty, in China. Additionally, it uncovers that while most platform workers claim to choose this job for its freedom, their decision is often driven by indebtedness. These debts are deeply intertwined with everyday emergencies and familial obligations, which destabilise platform workers’ labour arrangements but also contribute to their resilience in moments of crisis. This research contends that the uncritical denunciation of the ‘control’ and ‘precarity’ inherent in platform work upholds normative standards of what defines a ‘good’ job and a ‘good’ life, thereby foreclosing alternative ways of working, living, and relating to one another.

Hongshan Wang is a DPhil student in Anthropology at the University of Oxford. She completed her undergraduate studies in Sociology in mainland China and obtained an MPhil in Social Anthropology from Oxford. Her research focuses on digital technologies, platform work, and the dynamics of values.