Platformization and Digital Labour in China

Full Program > Panels > 1A | Platformization and Digital Labour in China 

1A | Platformization and Digital Labour in China 

Time:
Day 1: 25 June 2021

Melbourne, AEST (UTC +10) | 11:45 – 12:45

Beijing, CST (UTC +8) | 09:45 – 10:45
London, BST (UTC +1) | 02:45 – 03:45
New York, EDT (UTC -4) | (24 June) 21:45 – 22:45
Los Angeles, PDT (UTC -7) | (24 June) 18: 45 – 19:45

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Description

In the last decade, the rise of platform economy has become an issue of priority as China continues its urbanization and digitalization. According to the Report of China’s Share Economy (National Information Center, 2020), platforms in China have accommodated the workforce population as high as 78 million, among which large numbers of workers have shifted from traditional ector to the platform-mediated service sectors such as ride-hailing, parcel courier, live-streaming, and food-delivery (Linkedin Netease, 2020). Who are the digital labourers in China’s platform economy? How to conceptualize the continued platformization in a Chinese context and how does the rising platform influence individual’s daily practice? To what extent can we make sense of the platform capital in an critially historical, cultural and discursive approach? Based on these questions, this panel puts together five excellent papers to explore China’s constant platformzation and its digital labour dynamics under the intersection among institutional, organizational and socio-cultural structures in China. The panel covers both empirical observations and theoretical discussions of platform work which ranges from the live streaming guilds to the food delivery platform, from the information have-more to the globally existing “sangong” and relational labour. A variety of topics such as class, gender, technology, and labour are discussed and analyzed so as to contribute to and reflect on the ongoing discussions of platformzation in a global trend. Followings are the abstracts of the five papers.  

Abstracts

• “Zhibo Gonghui: China’s “Live-Streaming Guilds” of Algorithmic Experts”, by Chris K.K. Tan & Tingting Liu
• “From Casual Worker (Sangong) to Platform Labor: gig workers in China and the global conditions of (the platform) capitalism”, by Julie Yujie Chen
• “The Information Have-more: Understanding the working class in the Platformization of the Chinese Network Society”, by WeiMing Ye & Luming Zhao
• “Navigating the Economy of Ambivalent Intimacy: Gender and Relational Labour in China’s Livestreaming Industry”, by Zhen Ye & Chenyu Dong
• “The rise of platformized governance in China: Migration, technology and social integration”, by Sophie Sun Ping

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