The Centre for Internet and Society
http://editors.cis-india.org
These are the search results for the query, showing results 11 to 25.
Women at (gig) work: When financial freedom comes at a cost
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-may-14-2023-aiswarya-raj-women-at-gig-work-unruly-customers-job-insecurity-prejudice-against-women-financial-freedom-comes-at-a-cost-for-women-working-as-delivery-executives-cab-drivers
<b>Chiara Furtado was quoted in a news article on women’s experiences working on ride-hailing and delivery platforms. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Chiara Furtado, researcher at the Centre for Internet and Society, says since women make up only 0.5 and 1% of the workforce in these two sectors – food delivery and cab-hailing industry – the standardised policies for workers end up being gendered. “Algorithm incentivises longer hours of work, late shifts, peak hours and consecutive rides, which prove to be discriminating against women,” she adds.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Furtado says that findings have revealed that in times of crisis, most safety mechanisms tend to be more restrictive and end up curtailing the freedom and agency of women. Khatoon elucidates Furtado’s point with her own example. “I ride an e-scooter and don’t get orders to spots above a distance of 5 km. This decreases my area and income. Those who can travel 20 km get Rs 100 per ride,” she says.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Companies claim to offer insurance, but the way they externalize fuel costs, they externalize risk and safety costs too. Apart from general safety, they have other grievances, such as toilets, which have gender underpinnings to it,” says Furtado.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Click to read the full article published in the Indian Express <a class="external-link" href="https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/women-at-gig-work-unruly-customers-job-insecurity-prejudice-against-women-financial-freedom-comes-at-a-cost-for-women-working-as-delivery-executives-cab-drivers-8607997/">here</a></p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-may-14-2023-aiswarya-raj-women-at-gig-work-unruly-customers-job-insecurity-prejudice-against-women-financial-freedom-comes-at-a-cost-for-women-working-as-delivery-executives-cab-drivers'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-may-14-2023-aiswarya-raj-women-at-gig-work-unruly-customers-job-insecurity-prejudice-against-women-financial-freedom-comes-at-a-cost-for-women-working-as-delivery-executives-cab-drivers</a>
</p>
No publisherAiswarya RajLabour FuturesResearchers at Work2023-07-04T06:12:05ZNews ItemGig Workers Are Being Stabbed, Beaten, and Abused in India
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/wired-uk-april-12-2023-varsha-bansal-gig-workers-are-being-stabbed-beaten-and-abused-india
<b>An Uber driver was mugged. An Ola driver was beaten and left in a coma. Platform workers say tech companies are doing little to protect them.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Aaysh Rathi, was quoted in a news article on the violence that platform workers face in their line of work. Wired UK published the article, as part of the Pulitzer Centre’s support for reportage on the harms of technological systems.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Rathi says that a responsive grievance mechanism for gig workers is “completely absent” and continues to be “one of the top three demands” that workers have. “The firms are able to provide more responsive services to customers,” he says. “The workers are as important if not more [than customers], and they should be able to extend the same kind of mechanisms, practices, and policies to workers.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"For one in three people while going to work fearing that they might be robbed today or face physical assault is alarmingly high."</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/gig-workers-are-being-stabbed-beaten-and-abused-india">Click</a> to read the full article published in the Pulitzer Center on April 12, 2023</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/wired-uk-april-12-2023-varsha-bansal-gig-workers-are-being-stabbed-beaten-and-abused-india'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/wired-uk-april-12-2023-varsha-bansal-gig-workers-are-being-stabbed-beaten-and-abused-india</a>
</p>
No publisherVarsha BansalLabour FuturesResearchers at Work2023-07-04T06:04:07ZNews ItemIndia’s gig economy drivers face bust in the country’s digital boom
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/tech-crunch-jagmeet-singh-india-gig-workers-problems
<b>Workers on platforms like Uber, Ola and Swiggy deal with blocked accounts, other backlash for speaking out over poor conditions</b>
<p>Aayush Rathi was quoted in a news article published by TechCrunch, a leading publication on technology and business reporting:</p>
<blockquote class="quoted">“Whenever a worker faces a challenge, it’s very hard for them to get recourse from anywhere. Most of these big platforms are geared toward alleviating customers’ grievances,” said Aayush Rathi, research and programs lead at the Centre for Internet and Society.</blockquote>
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<p><br />To read the full article published by TechCrunch on 25 January 2023, <a class="external-link" href="https://techcrunch.com/2023/01/25/india-gig-workers-problems/">click here</a></p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/tech-crunch-jagmeet-singh-india-gig-workers-problems'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/tech-crunch-jagmeet-singh-india-gig-workers-problems</a>
</p>
No publisherJagmeet SinghLabour FuturesResearchers at Work2023-07-04T05:02:22ZNews ItemGlobal Perspectives on Women, Work and Digital Labour Platforms
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/global-perspectives-on-women-work-and-digital-labour-platforms
<b>Ambika Tandon was a panellist at the launch event for the Global Perspectives on Women, Work and Digital Labour Platforms organized by Digital Future Society on July 13, 2022 on online platform.</b>
<p>The panel discussed the gendered nature of gig work across different global south contexts. The other panellists were Francisca Pereyra, from the Instituto de Ciencias, Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento, and Uma Rani, from the International Labour Organization.</p>
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<p>For more information follow <a class="external-link" href="https://digitalfuturesociety.com/agenda/global-perspectives-on-women-work-and-digital-labour-platforms/">this link</a>.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/global-perspectives-on-women-work-and-digital-labour-platforms'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/global-perspectives-on-women-work-and-digital-labour-platforms</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminLabour FuturesResearchers at Work2023-07-04T04:43:13ZNews ItemGender and collective bargaining in the platform economy: Experiences of on-demand beauty workers in India
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/gender-and-collective-bargaining-in-the-platform-economy
<b>Abhishek Sekharan, Chiara Furtado, and Ambika Tandon contributed an essay on gender and collective bargaining in the platform economy in India, reflecting on the experiences of women beauty workers who organised India’s first women-led movement of platform workers. The essay has been published as part of an online collection of essays from contributors across the world and has been curated by the Digital Future Society Think Tank (Barcelona, Spain).</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In October 2021, women beauty workers from Urban Company (UC), India’s premier platform providing at-home personal services, organised outside their head office in Gurugram to protest their unfair working conditions and lack of social security. Among their demands were the need to reduce and stabilise exorbitant platform commissions, remove arbitrary workforce management practices, reinstate control over working hours, and develop effective grievance redressal and support helplines to aid workers’ safety.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This was a first-of-its-kind resistance led by women workers in India’s booming platform economy. Many of the demands put forth by these workers are reflective of issues that commonly impact women’s labour force participation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Women face considerable entry barriers in the platform economy, which is reflected in their low participation in ride-hailing and delivery — sectors that engage a majority of the gig workforce (ILO 2021). Instead, women are predominantly employed in historically feminised sectors such as domestic work, healthcare services, beauty work, and online tutoring.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Click here to read the <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/global-persectives-on-women-work-and-digital-platforms" class="internal-link">full essay</a>.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/gender-and-collective-bargaining-in-the-platform-economy'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/gender-and-collective-bargaining-in-the-platform-economy</a>
</p>
No publisherAbhishek Sekharan, Chiara Furtado and Ambika TandonLabour FuturesResearchers at Work2023-07-03T16:40:58ZBlog EntryMetaphors of Work, from ‘Below’
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/springer-platformization-and-informality-chapter-metaphors-of-work-from-below
<b>Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon authored a chapter that describes platforms as more than technological interfaces. The chapter invokes some of the metaphors that gig workers use to make sense of platforms. This chapter was part of an edited volume published by Springer. This chapter forms part of the ‘Labour Futures’ research project, hosted at the Centre for Internet and Society, India, and supported by the Internet Society Foundation. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Various disciplines have produced literature on digital platforms—broadly categorised as technological interfaces enabling the exchange of goods and services — with little consensus on what platforms are and how they impact economic and labour systems. Features that are commonly associated with platforms include their role in increasing efficiency in supply chains, their deployment of cutting-edge technology, and their ability to ‘disrupt’ existing modes of provision of services and goods (Jarrahi & Sutherland, 2019). The use of metaphors and carefully curated taxonomy has been crucial in cementing this idea of the digital platform as a technological layer objectively matching supply and demand (Gillespie, 2017). This chapter seeks to document and understand how workers experience different types of digital platforms, and how workers’ imaginaries of platforms differ from popular and academic conceptions.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-11462-5_8">Click to read more</a></p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/springer-platformization-and-informality-chapter-metaphors-of-work-from-below'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/springer-platformization-and-informality-chapter-metaphors-of-work-from-below</a>
</p>
No publisherAayush Rathi and Ambika TandonLabour FuturesRAW BlogResearchRAW PublicationsRAW ResearchResearchers at Work2023-07-03T12:29:29ZBlog EntryDesigning Domestic Work Platforms
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/apc-cis-divyansha-sehgal-yathrath-designing-domestic-work-platforms
<b>This research was conducted by The Center for Internet and Society (CIS) with funding from Association for Progressive Communication (APC) through the Feminist Internet Research Network (FIRN), supported by International Development Research Centre (IDRC). The authors are deeply grateful to the platform workers who talked to us and shared their experiences of finding work through Urban Company. Their responses shaped our research and their insights guided the creation of this final report.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), there are between 20 million and 80 million workers engaged in domestic work in India. Domestic work has traditionally been an informal sector with customers and workers depending on local and community networks to be connected with each other. Over the last few years, digital platforms have gained ground in connecting domestic workers with tech-savvy urban dwellers.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">These platforms promise customers the ease and convenience of moving yet another aspect of their lives online, while they promise to give workers more flexibility, control over their time and increased earnings.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">However, we show that this introduction of technology brings with itself the same problems that haunt other sectors of platform-mediated gig work. On-demand platforms seek to exert control over most points of the service delivery process, including job distributions, client selection, worker pay and performance evaluation, all the while relegating workers to an independent contractor status.</p>
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<p>Click to download the <b><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/designing-domestic-work-platforms/at_download/file" class="external-link">full report</a></b></p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/apc-cis-divyansha-sehgal-yathrath-designing-domestic-work-platforms'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/apc-cis-divyansha-sehgal-yathrath-designing-domestic-work-platforms</a>
</p>
No publisherDivyansha Sehgal and YathrathResearchers at WorkRAW BlogDomestic Work2022-08-13T06:31:47ZBlog EntryProcurement Through Digital Platforms
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/procurement-through-digital-platforms
<b>Procurement policies, both public and private, can play a significant role in determining inclusive market participation, particularly for informal women workers and their collective enterprises. </b>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Executive Summary</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Various factors, including pricing, compliance and transparency in systems, can determine how and upto what extent women are able to utilise procurement platforms. With the emergence of a new, digital economy, procurement platforms (public and private) too have adopted technology-enabled systems. For informal women workers and their collective enterprises, the ability to engage with these interfaces also determines if and to what extent they can link with the supply chain.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In this report, we map the experiences of women’s collective enterprises (owned by informal women workers), particularly their capacities to use digital procurement platforms and the concurrent challenges that they face. The challenges highlighted in this report present an opportunity for procurement policies to deliberate and adapt, so that women workers can also utilise these platforms.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As a Women’s Enterprise Support System, SEWA Cooperative Federation was able to study eight women’s collective enterprises - owned, managed and used by informal women workers - with respect to procurement.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We interviewed board members, managers, and members of these collective enterprises, across sectors: agriculture, manufacturing, services, transport, and were able to understand key issues that emerged.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Click to <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/procurement-digital-platforms.pdf" class="internal-link">read the full report</a></p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/procurement-through-digital-platforms'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/procurement-through-digital-platforms</a>
</p>
No publisherSEWA Cooperative Federation and Centre for Internet & SocietyResearchers at WorkRAW Blog2022-07-26T14:35:47ZBlog EntryDatafication of the Public Distribution System in India
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/datafication-of-the-public-distribution-system-in-india
<b>In this study, we look into the datafication of social protection schemes with a special focus on the Public Distribution System in India. Proponents of datafication claim that the benefits will reach the right person and curb leakages through the automation and digitisation of all PDS processes. Aadhaar is the most important link in the datafication; supporters claim that it makes technology people-centric. This study looks at the status of PDS datafication and its impact on the delivery of the scheme in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. We also try to understand to what extent the stated objective of portability has been met and how far the challenges faced by the rights holders of the PDS have been resolved. </b>
<p>Read the full report <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/datafication-of-the-public-distribution-system-in-india-pdf" class="internal-link">here</a>.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/datafication-of-the-public-distribution-system-in-india'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/datafication-of-the-public-distribution-system-in-india</a>
</p>
No publisherSameet PandaRAW ResearchFeaturedResearchers at WorkRAW Blog2024-02-12T12:07:40ZBlog EntryInternet Researchers' Conference 2022 (IRC22): #Home, May 25-27
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc-22-home
<b>We are excited to announce that the fifth edition of the Internet Researchers' Conference will be held online on May 25-27, 2022.This annual conference series was initiated by the researchers@work (r@w) programme at CIS in 2016 to gather researchers and practitioners engaging with the internet in/from India to congregate, share insights and tensions, and chart the ways forward. This year, the conference brings together a set of reflections and conversations on how we imagine and experience the home —as a space of refuge and comfort, but also as one of violence, care, labour and movement-building.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Venue: Online on Zoom</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Registration: <a class="external-link" href="https://tinyurl.com/reg-irc22">https://tinyurl.com/reg-irc22</a></strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Code of Conduct:<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/IRC22_CoCFSP" class="external-link"> Download (PDF)</a></strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Conference Programme: <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/IRC22.Programme.Final%20" class="external-link">Download (PDF)</a></strong></p>
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<p> </p>
<p><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/copy_of_IRCPoster2.jpg/@@images/fa92d73e-af12-492b-b55c-f06e7a661415.jpeg" alt="null" class="image-inline" title="IRC Poster 2" /></p>
<p dir="ltr">The ‘home’ has been a key line of defence in efforts to curtail the spread of COVID-19. Public health recommendations and governmental measures have enforced numerous restrictions on daily living, including physical distancing and isolation, home confinement, and quarantining. These mandates to be at home have relied on the construction, and assumption, of home as a familiar, stable and safe space.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">However, home has always been a site of intense political contestation—be it through the temporal frames of belonging, ideas of citizenship and regionalism, role in the reproduction of capital accumulation, or as material signifiers of social status. Over the past 2 years, digital infrastructures have played an intensified role in the meaning making of the home. Coming to terms with the pandemic entailed an accelerated embedding of digital systems in many of our relationships. Be it with the state, educational institutions, workplaces, or each other. Solutions to the many challenges of infrastructure and mobility emerging over the last year have been sought in digital technologies. The digital mediation of the pandemic has ushered in visions of the ‘new normal’ as situated wholly in the digital.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">While the initial anxieties of living through the pandemic may have now eased, and we make forays into a changed world, the spectre of the ‘next normal’ awaits. As we continue to come to terms with, and find ways to reorient the disruption of life, being at home has acquired many new meanings. What has it meant to be at home, and what is home? What is and has been the role of the internet and digital media technologies in navigating the contours of a changing ‘normal’? How have/can digital technologies help overcome, or exacerbate existing social, economic and political challenges during the pandemic? What forms of digital infrastructure—tools, platforms, devices and services—help build, sustain and alter the notion of home?</p>
<p dir="ltr">For IRC22, we invited sessions across a range of formats and themes to explore and challenge conceptions of the home. Different people imagine and experience the home in various ways—as a space of refuge and comfort, but also as one of violence, care, labour and/or movement-building. We invited contributions that speak to these provocations through one or more of the above thematic areas. A set of 12 sessions were finalised for the conference (including 4 individual presentations), based on peer selection by teams and presenters who proposed sessions as well as an external review.</p>
<h3 dir="ltr"></h3>
<h3><strong>Sessions</strong></h3>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-waitingforfood">#WaitingForFood</a> - Rhea Bose and Nisha Subramanian</p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-thismightnotbeonline">#thismightnotbeonline</a> - Kaushal Sapre and Aasma Tulika</p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-identitiesvulnerabilitiesopportunitiesdissentir">#IdentitesVulnerabilitiesOpportunitiesDissent</a> - Saumya Tewari, Manisha Madhava, Dhrupadi Chattopadhyay and Aparna Bose</p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-homeandtheinternet">#HomeAndTheInternet</a> - Dona Biswas, Bhanu Priya Gupta and Ekta Kailash Sonwane </p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-letsmovein">#LetsMoveIn</a> - Arathy Salimkumar, Faheem Muhammed, Hazeena T and Manisha Madapathy</p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-lockdownsandshutdowns">#LockdownsAndShutdowns</a> - Michael Collyer, Joss Wright, Andreas Tsamados, Marianne Díaz Hernández and Nathan Dobson</p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-identifyingtheideaoflabourinteaching">#IdentifyingtheIdeaoflLaborinTeaching</a> - Sunanda Kar and Bishal Sinha</p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-homebasedflexiworkincovid19">#HomeBasedFlexiworkInCovid19</a> - Sabina Dewan, Mukta Naik, Ayesha Zainudeen, Gayani Hurulle, Hue-Tam Jamme and Devesh Taneja</p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-involutejaggedseamsofthedomesticandthevocational">#Involute:Jagged Seams of the Domestic and the Vocational -</a> Akriti Rastogi, Deepak Prince, Misbah Rashid and Satish Kumar</p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-digitisingcrisesremakinghome">#DigitisingCrisesRemakingHome</a> - Vidya Subramanian, Kalindi Kokal and Uttara Purandare</p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong><br /></strong></p>
<h3><strong>Individual Presentations</strong></h3>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-goinghomeconstructionofadigitalurbanplatforminterfaceindelhincr">#GoingHome: Constructions of a Digital-Urban Platform Interface in Delhi-NCR</a> - Anurag Mazumdar</p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-socialmediaactivism">#SocialMediaActivism</a> - Anushka Bhilwar</p>
<p><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-transactandwhatfollowed">#TransActandWhatFollowed</a> - Brindaalakshmi K</p>
<h3><strong>About the IRC Series</strong></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Researchers and practitioners across the domains of arts, humanities, and social sciences have attempted to understand life on the internet, or life after the internet, and the way digital technologies mediate various aspects of our being today. These attempts have in turn raised new questions around understanding of digital objects, online lives, and virtual networks, and have contributed to complicating disciplinary assumptions, methods, conceptualisations, and boundaries.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">The researchers@work programme at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) initiated the Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC) series to address these concerns, and to create an annual temporary space in India, for internet researchers to gather and share experiences.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The IRC series is driven by the following interests:</p>
<ul>
<li>creating discussion spaces for researchers and practitioners studying internet in India and in other comparable regions,</li>
<li>foregrounding the multiplicity, hierarchies, tensions, and urgencies of the digital sites and users in India,</li>
<li>accounting for the various layers, conceptual and material, of experiences and usages of internet and networked digital media in India, and</li>
<li>exploring and practicing new modes of research and documentation necessitated by new (digital) objects of power/knowledge.</li></ul>
<p><span id="docs-internal-guid-e32d113c-7fff-b48f-7af4-0a47077cf4a6"> </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">The<a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc16"> first edition of the Internet Researchers' Conference</a> series was held in February 2016. It was hosted by the<a href="https://www.jnu.ac.in/SSS/CPS/"> Centre for Political Studies</a> at Jawaharlal Nehru University, and was supported by the CSCS Digital Innovation Fund. The<a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc17"> second Internet Researchers' Conference</a> was organised in partnership with the<a href="http://citapp.iiitb.ac.in/"> Centre for Information Technology and Public Policy</a> (CITAPP) at the International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIIT-B) campus on March 03-05, 2017. The<a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc18"> third Internet Researchers' Conference</a> was organised at the<a href="http://www.sambhaavnaa.org/"> Sambhaavnaa Institute</a>, Kandbari (Himachal Pradesh) during February 22-24, 2018, and the theme of the conference was *offline*. The<a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-list"> fourth Internet Researcher's Conference </a>was held at <a class="external-link" href="https://digital.lamakaan.com/">Lamakaan, Hyderabad</a> from January 30 - February 01, on the theme of the 'list'.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc-22-home'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc-22-home</a>
</p>
No publisherPuthiya Purayil SnehaResearchers at WorkInternet Researcher's ConferenceFeaturedIRC22HomepageInternet Studies2022-05-24T14:38:57ZBlog EntryStudying Platform Work in Mumbai & New Delhi
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/cis-and-apu-studying-platform-work-in-mumbai-and-new-delhi
<b>A report by Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) and Azim Premji University (APU) maps platform work in India and notes from four studies of workers driving taxis and delivering food for platform companies.
</b>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Introduction</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">With the arrival and rapid spread of gig platforms in India and across the world, scholars across fields – from economics and sociology to digital and new media studies – started to investigate how app-based gig platforms are affecting large and small-scale social and economic transformations. In the ‘first wave’ of gig economy research, scholars questioned the nomenclature itself, debating whether it should be called the ‘sharing economy’, gig economy, or rental economy. The impetus for these debates was, perhaps, that we already had some existing models for the sharing economy that largely drew on the idea of ‘the commons’ – or the general understanding that highly networked environments would offer people the opportunity to share their knowledge and spare resources freely, without charge, thus bypassing established corporate oligopolies as well as national and international laws that restricted free movement and access to knowledge and resources – especially for people from the so-called ‘developing’ world. To that effect, there exists valuable research now that bridges the moment of the sharing economy with the gig economy. For instance, Lampinen and colleagues studied older platforms and communities, like Couch Surfing, which allowed people to host and live on other people’s couches (or in their spare rooms) for no cost. The same set of scholars also studied Air Bnb and offered comparative understandings of how norms and expectations around partaking in (someone’s) idle resources change when the ‘gig logic’ enters the frame and platforms become real-time marketplaces for the exchange of goods and services, as against a temporally slower and more altruistic community-based model of sharing.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The ‘second wave’ of gig economy research, mostly originating in and responding to technological,social, and economic developments in North America and Western Europe, has focused on the disruptive effects of gig platforms on employment trends and the future of work. To elaborate, these scholars argue that gig platforms, by offering the promise of flexible work and quick earnings, but not the benefits of full-time, standard employment,are contributing to the ongoing casualisation and precaritisation of work at large. As marketplaces powered by algorithmic decision-making,platforms often argue that the resultant prices as well as earnings are not a product of human or organisational decisions but rather a result of algorithmic decisions and data points. Since these algorithmic systems are ‘black boxed’ or treated as highly confidential intellectual property, there is little scope to audit or ‘peek’ into their workings to understand how or why ‘real-time dynamic surge pricing’ works the way it does. A related host of issues concerns over the employment status of gig platform workers. As critics of platforms have noted, while platform companies classify workers as ‘independent contractors’ or‘vendors’, gig workers satisfy all the requirements of the employment test and thus deserve tobe recognised and compensated as full-time employees. In a landmark case brought forth by gig worker representatives in the UK, the court did recognise platform workers as employees and called for companies to reclassify them as such. Underlying debates around employment classification, compensation, and job security are united by a centralised theme that resonates with labour scholars globally – the (in)formalisation of work.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Reclassifying gig workers as full-time employees would further make them eligible for paid sick leave, maternity leave, and other health benefits, and would possibly make them eligible for minimum wage as well, thus leading to the formalisation and increased regulation of gig work.As scholars of platform work (including crowdwork) outside of industrialised countries have noted, even reclassification or simply recognising these jobs as a part of the formal sector may not necessarily translate to similar benefits or increased salaries in the longer term. Juxtaposed against a landscape of ubiquitous informality, as in the case of India, gig work does offer some features and affordances of formal work, such as financialisation, formal contracts, and the ability to at least appeal unfair practices, albeit to a limited degree. However, formalisation for its own sake in traditional legal and economistic terms may neither be possible nor entirely in response to the unique moment of precarity in the global South, where youth unemployment and skill and job misalignment, among other structural issues, inform the horizon of what kinds of futures are possible and how to attain them.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">However, investigating questions of work, futures, and digital participation are not merely about finding answers to challenges in structural economic development and long- and short-term policy-making. The present, so to speak, is far from being determined by, or lived out in, the service of state or corporate visions; it is not the result of what happens between people as they participate on digital platforms. What happens to urban spaces; notions of kinship, publicity, social relationships, and hierarchies; and quotidian understandings of money, desire, aspirations, respect, morals, and justice is equally rich and important when understanding social transformation and the contribution of digital media to social change. Further, rather than approach economic, social, and cultural encounters as separate, we find it valuable to unpack platform encounters and exchanges, as we describe them in this report, as socio-technical and digital-cultural texts that hold within them the working out of macro and micro phenomena. Why and how rural, urban, migrant, and local workers take up gig work and invest in certain kinds of smartphones, cars, scooters, friendships, relationships, and uniforms cannot be attributed only to economic rationality or macro-sociological factors. But, simultaneously, in addition to these material cues, the conversations between gig workers, the norms they hold, and the norms that are in the process of being worked out as they go through their daily motions and emotions, their changing fashioning of the self, the perplexity resulting from daily work within an environment where they get very little information beforehand – all these are important forms of evidence to understand the human-machine encounter within a global South context and the resultant transformation of the self and society. Class, gender, and caste power in urban India are constantly being asserted, challenged, and reworked, not just through visible, large-scale social movements, but also through habits of consumption, intimate conversation, and encounters with the ‘other’. In the field reports that follow, researchers have tried to mine and attend to these daily intimate platform encounters to produce traces of what is ongoing and still being worked out: the process of platformisation and its social, cultural, and digital effects.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">When we imagined this project, we were responding to some of the gaps as well as the disciplinary orthodoxy of scholarship that dictates platform studies and digital labour scholarship. We deliberately wanted to follow and replicate more generative approaches to the study of capitalisms and platform capitalism in this case. To that effect, we wanted to focus on the life worlds and laboring practices of gig workers, looking beyond the money they make through apps, how they are treated by platform companies, and how they resist their algorithmic management. As we succeeded in some measure through each field report, our aim was to recentre gig platform scholarship around who these workers are as urban dwellers, as gendered, caste, and class-ed bodies navigating Indian city spaces, and how their aspirations, constraints, and understandings of success, money, safety, and respect inform their encounters with the platform company, customers, police personnel, and the app itself.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We, the team at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, as well as co-principal investigator (PI), Noopur Raval, and field researchers, Anushree Gupta, Rajendra Jadhav, Sarah Zia, and Simiran Lalvani, are grateful to the Azim Premji University Research Grants Programme for their generous sponsorship and support for the project. This project contributes to thinking about the Future(s) of Work theme that is an active area of inquiry within the university and beyond. To reiterate, digital labour and platform studies scholarship in India and the global South is still at a nascent stage. Since the time we conceptualised, conducted, and analysed this gig work research, more studies have emerged (including studies by other researchers at CIS), and our report adds to this growing field of inquiry. The insights we present far from foreclose the questions or even the lines of inquiry that we open here. The report is structured as follows: we begin by reflecting on the changes in the gig work landscape after the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically in terms of how the pandemic has affected working-class communities, and, by extension, those who work in the platform economy. Subsequently, we present individual field reports by three field researchers, Sarah Zia, Simiran Lalvani, and Anushree Gupta, who reflect on their studies of gig work in Mumbai and Delhi, respectively. The report ends with a short conclusion and some methodological reflections that we gathered during the project.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Access the <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/studying-platform-work-in-mumbai-new-delhi.pdf" class="internal-link">full report here</a>.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/cis-and-apu-studying-platform-work-in-mumbai-and-new-delhi'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/cis-and-apu-studying-platform-work-in-mumbai-and-new-delhi</a>
</p>
No publisherAnushree Gupta, Rajendra Jadhav, Sarah Zia, Simiran Lalvani and Noopur RavalPlatform EconomyGig WorkResearchers at Work2022-05-05T17:13:10ZBlog EntryInternet Researchers' Conference 2022 (IRC22) - Selected Sessions
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc22-home-selected-sessions
<b>Here is the list of selected sessions and individual presentations for the Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC22) - #Home. IRC22 will be held online from May 25-27, 2022. The conference announcement, along with details on registration will be published in the first week of May.
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<p><strong>Internet Researchers' Conference 2022 - #Home: <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/internet-researchers-conference-2022">Call for Sessions</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>Internet Researchers' Conference 2022 - #Home: <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-sessions">List of Proposed Sessions</a></strong></p>
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<p><strong>Selected Sessions and Total Scores</strong> </p>
<p dir="ltr"><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-waitingforfood">#WaitingForFood </a>- Rhea Bose and Nisha Subramanian (85.00)</p>
<p dir="ltr"><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-thismightnotbeonline">#thismightnotbeonline </a>- Kaushal Sapre; Aasma Tulika (81.88)</p>
<p dir="ltr"><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-goinghomeconstructionofadigitalurbanplatforminterfaceindelhincr">#GoingHome: Constructions of a Digital-Urban Platform Interface in Delhi-NCR</a> - Anurag Mazumdar (80.63)</p>
<p dir="ltr"><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-covidconfessions">#CovidConfessions</a> - Indumathi Manohar (80.63)</p>
<p dir="ltr"><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-identitiesvulnerabilitiesopportunitiesdissentir">#IdentitesVulnerabilitiesOpportunitiesDissent </a>- Saumya Tewari; Manisha Madhava; Dhrupadi Chattopadhyay; Aparna Bose (79.38)</p>
<p dir="ltr"><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-homeandtheinternet">#HomeAndTheInternet </a>- Dona Biswas; Bhanu Priya Gupta (77.50)</p>
<p dir="ltr"><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-letsmovein">#LetsMoveIn </a>- Arathy Salimkumar; Faheem Muhammed; Hazeena T; Manisha Madapathy (76.25)</p>
<p dir="ltr"><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-lockdownsandshutdowns">#LockdownsAndShutdowns </a>- Michael Collyer; Joss Wright (73.75)</p>
<p dir="ltr"><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-actfromhome">#ActFromHome </a>- Maya Sherman; Rai Sengupta (73.75)</p>
<p dir="ltr"><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-socialmediaactivism">#SocialMediaActivism </a>- Anushka Bhilwar (69.38)</p>
<p dir="ltr"><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-transactandwhatfollowed">#TransActandWhatFollowed </a>- Brindaalakshmi K (68.75)</p>
<p dir="ltr"><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-identifyingtheideaoflabourinteaching">#IdentifyingtheIdeaoflLaborinTeaching </a>- Sunanda Kar; Bishal Sinha (68.75)</p>
<p dir="ltr"><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-homebasedflexiworkincovid19">#HomeBasedFlexiworkInCovid19 </a>- Sabina Dewan; Mukta Naik; Ayesha Zainudeen; Gayani Hurulle; Hue-Tam Jamme; Devesh Taneja (67.50)</p>
<p dir="ltr"><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-involutejaggedseamsofthedomesticandthevocational">#Involute:Jagged Seams of the Domestic and the Vocational -</a> Akriti Rastogi; Deepak Prince; Misbah Rashid; Satish Kumar (65.63)</p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-digitisingcrisesremakinghome">#DigitisingCrisesRemakingHome </a>- Vidya Subramanian; Kalindi Kokal; Uttara Purandare (61.88)</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify;"><span class="discreet"> Note: The total scores were derived from anonymous peer selection by all teams and scores by a panel of external reviewers, with both processes given a 50% weightage.</span></p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc22-home-selected-sessions'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc22-home-selected-sessions</a>
</p>
No publisherPuthiya Purayil SnehaIRC22Internet StudiesInternet Researcher's ConferenceResearchers at Work2022-04-26T07:00:30ZBlog EntryFeminist Design Practices
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/artez-platform-aayush-rathi-akash-sheshadri-ambika-tandon-feminist-design-practices
<b>Aayush Rathi and Akash Sheshadri and Ambika Tandon co-authored a research paper on 'Feminist Design Practices' which was published in a special issue of Apria, a peer-reviewed journal hosted at ArtEZ University. The special issue "Feminist by Design" highlights the work of the Feminist Internet Research Network and its contributions to building an equitable internet through design interventions.</b>
<h3>Abstract</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Feminist and design justice principles can be adopted into research praxis to make knowledge less extractive and more accessible. These principles include making research and outreach more participatory, translating academic knowledge into more accessible forms, and channelling research into action that can challenge patriarchy and other systems of domination.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This paper focusses on the outreach and communication of policy research to outline its potential for producing radical change and translating knowledge across communities. The authors reflect on their experiences of producing research for domestic workers and workers’ collectives in India to highlight challenges and ways forward for accessible research forms.</p>
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<p>To access the full article published in Apria, <a class="external-link" href="https://apria.artez.nl/feminist-design-practices/">click here</a></p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/artez-platform-aayush-rathi-akash-sheshadri-ambika-tandon-feminist-design-practices'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/artez-platform-aayush-rathi-akash-sheshadri-ambika-tandon-feminist-design-practices</a>
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No publisherAayush Rathi, Akash Sheshadri and Ambika TandonGenderResearchPlatform EconomyPeer Reviewed ArticleDomestic WorkResearchers at Work2022-04-16T03:34:51ZBlog EntryInternet Researchers' Conference 2022 (IRC22) - Proposed Sessions
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-sessions
<b>Here is the list of sessions proposed for the Internet Researchers' Conference 2022 - #Home.</b>
<p><strong><br /></strong></p>
<p><strong>Internet Researchers' Conference 2022</strong> - #<a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/internet-researchers-conference-2022">Home - Call for Sessions</a></p>
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<p>#<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-digitisingcrisesremakinghome" class="external-link">DigitisingCrisesRemakingHome</a></p>
<p>#<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-letsmovein" class="external-link">LetsMoveIn</a></p>
<p>#<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-thismightnotbeonline" class="external-link">ThisMightNotBeOnline</a></p>
<p>#<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-metaverseinquilab" class="external-link">MetaverseInquilab</a></p>
<p>#<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-identitiesvulnerabilitiesopportunitiesdissentir" class="external-link">IdentitesVulnerabilitiesOpportunitiesDissent</a></p>
<p>#<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-lockdownsandshutdowns" class="external-link">LockdownsAndShutdowns</a></p>
<p>#<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-actfromhome" class="external-link">ActFromHome</a></p>
<p>#<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-covid19vaccinediscourse" class="external-link">COVID19VaccineDiscourse</a></p>
<p>#<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-homebasedflexiworkincovid19" class="external-link">HomeBasedFlexiworkInCovid19</a></p>
<p>#<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-homeandtheinternet" class="external-link">HomeAndTheInternet</a></p>
<p>#<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-socialmediaactivism" class="external-link">SocialMediaActivism</a></p>
<p>#<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-goinghomeconstructionofadigitalurbanplatforminterfaceindelhincr" class="external-link">“Going Home”: Constructions of a Digital-Urban Platform Interface in Delhi-NCR</a></p>
<p>#<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-waitingforfood" class="external-link">WaitingForFood</a></p>
<p>#<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-transactandwhatfollowed" class="external-link">TransActandWhatFollowed - Access to care for transgender persons during the COVID-19 pandemic</a></p>
<p>#<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-covidconfessions" class="external-link">CovidConfessions: An internet art project</a></p>
<p>#<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-identifyingtheideaoflabourinteaching" class="external-link">Identifying the idea of labor in teaching – Negotiating pedagogy at home and inside classroom(s)</a></p>
<p>#<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-session-involutejaggedseamsofthedomesticandthevocational" class="external-link">Involute - Jagged Seams of the Domestic and the Vocational</a></p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-sessions'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc22-proposed-sessions</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminProposed SessionsInfrastructure StudiesInternet Researcher's ConferenceIRC22Researchers at Work2022-04-26T07:07:52ZBlog EntryThe State of the Internet's Languages Report
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/state-of-the-internet-languages-report-2022
<b>The first-ever State of the Internet’s Languages Report was launched by Whose Knowledge? on February 23, 2022 (just after the International Mother Language day), along with research partners Oxford Internet Institute and the Centre for Internet and Society. This extraordinarily community-sourced effort, with over 100 people involved is now available online, with translations in multiple languages. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify;">There are over 7000 (spoken and signed) languages in the world, but only a few can be fully experienced online. Challenges in accessing the internet and digital technologies in our preferred languages also means that a vast body of knowledge, especially from and by marginalised communities, is not represented and remains inaccessible to the world, thereby reiterating existing social inequalities. The State of the Internet's Languages report explores these and many other aspects related to ongoing efforts in creating a multilingual and multi-modal internet. Comprising both numbers and stories, the report features contributions in 13 languages, representing 22 language communities from 12 countries, and explores how communities across the world experience the internet.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify;">Read the full report <strong><a class="external-link" href="https://internetlanguages.org/en/">here</a>. </strong>See more details of the project<strong> <a class="external-link" href="https://whoseknowledge.org/initiatives/state-of-the-internets-languages/">here</a></strong></p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/state-of-the-internet-languages-report-2022'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/state-of-the-internet-languages-report-2022</a>
</p>
No publisherPuthiya Purayil SnehaRAW ResearchFeaturedResearchers at WorkRAW Blog2022-03-07T15:01:11ZBlog Entry