abstract: This dissertation investigates how rural e-commerce survives and thrives in resource-scarce rural China in the contemporary era. Building upon literatures on developmental state, state capitalism, industrial policy, and platform economy, this dissertation proposes a new theoretical framework, termed Digital Developmental Village, to understand China’s rural e-commerce development against rural China’s broader socioeconomic and politico-institutional contexts and the evolution of China’s political economy by underscoring three levels of interactions between the central government, local governments, e-commerce platform giants, and rural entrepreneurs. This dissertation draws upon the data from in-depth interviews with different kinds of participants involved with e-commerce at different places in which e-commerce-related activities occur through multi-site fieldwork across six East China provinces, together with data from secondary data gathering, to scrutinize interactions of four parties at each level. At the national level, this dissertation investigates the coevolution of the Digital Developmental Village model and finds that the bureaucratic evolution and emergence of new economic sector initially created and subsequently developed by private actors will be eventually subjected to the influence of China’s state capitalism. At the local level, in consideration of the factors of local governance approach, the pre-existing robust local economic sectors, and migration patterns, this dissertation creates a typological framework to explore the formation of e-commerce villages in varied settings of the combinations of three factors above. At the individual level, this dissertation finds that rural e-commerce entrepreneurs may achieve economic successes through some more intense forms of embeddedness, which are deemed commercially unwise in the extant literature, within differing local socioeconomic and politico-institutional contexts in China. Lastly, this dissertation analyzes the expansion of the Communist Party of China into rural e-commerce in the business incubator role and sees such organizational expansion as the efforts to implicitly exercise control over rural e-commerce. In sum, through top-down policy directives and bottom-up party organizational expansion, the Chinese state has been gradually transforming rural e-commerce to a new form of state capitalism with potential global impacts, which can empower resource-scarce villages and infuse two kinds of industrial policies to stimulate technological advances. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Justice Studies 2020

The labour law includes the legal regulation between employees and employers. However, new forms of work have been developed the last decade, as perform work through a digital platform. Considerable of modern working life with new forms of labour organisations, do not fit in the labour law. Platform work is based in temporary assignments instead of determined working hours. This results in a flexible work form, but with less stability and regularity. This can engender a lack of rights and social security and an increased uncertainty regarding their work situation.   The purpose of this study is to illustrate the phenomenon platform work from a labour law perspective. To fulfil this purpose and answer the research questions it has been relevant to investigate legal material to interpret, systemise and determine applicable law. The study has placed great emphasises on practice and doctrine.   The result of this study shows that it is complex to applicate the labour law on platform workers and it is difficult to determine if they should be identified as workers in a legal sense. Platform work still brings several questions about how such a labour organisation stands in the labour market. In some respects the relation between the platform and the platform workers is equivalent to the relation between an employer and an employee, and in some respect’s relationships differ. More legal sources on the subject may be required to understand the relationship between platform work and the employer and employee concept.

Thesis advisor: Juliet B. Schor / In this dissertation, I argue that questioning the relationship between technological change, specifically the new types of markets and practices enabled by the “sharing economy” and inequality has become an urgent need. While the sector promotes itself as the harbinger of egalitarian access to economic opportunity and consumption, independent studies of its operations and impacts point towards significant discriminatory dynamics favoring the already privileged. As the sector keeps growing, understanding its impact on inequality becomes ever more critical. I focus on one sharing economy platform, Airbnb, which facilitates the practice of “home-sharing,” or more accurately short-term rentals. I investigate the relationship between Airbnb and inequality in three papers that focus on how the deeply unequal urban settings where much of the economic activity on Airbnb takes place operate within the context of economic activity enabled by the platform. The analysis for all three papers is based on the data for more than 450,000 Airbnb listings and the demographic and economic characteristics of the neighborhoods they are located in. In the first paper, I look at how race determines the patterns of participation and outcomes for people who rent out their properties. I show that the economic opportunities generated by the platform are unequally distributed across the urban landscape. There are fewer listings in areas with higher concentrations of non-White residents, the listings that are located in these areas charge lower prices, and have lower earnings. The second paper investigates the relationship between the public reputation system on Airbnb and racial discrimination. I show that characterizing the reputation system as a racially neutral tool, which has the potential to reduce discriminatory outcomes, is highly problematic. Airbnb listings located in neighborhoods with higher percentages of non-White residents have a harder time generating reputation information when they first come on the platform and tend to have systematically lower ratings. The third paper focuses on how short-term rentals generates new dynamics of gentrification in cities, by providing evidence for a new type of “rent gap” between long-term and short-term rentals, and how property owners are exploiting it. I argue that short-term rentals, in the absence of further effective regulation from governments, are likely to drive increasing levels of gentrification as they remain highly profitable and occupy an increasing number of housing units. I believe that studying these aspects of the sharing economy contributes to a fuller understanding of technological change and its understudied interaction with inequality. Moving beyond the mostly theoretical and aggregated understanding of change inherent in the SBTC literature, my research promotes a more concrete and empirical engagement with change in line with some of the research on the “digital divide,” and the emergent literature on inequality on online platforms. Ultimately, I think such an engagement can serve as the basis for a broader theoretical reckoning with the increased pace of technological change as more and more of our social life is “disrupted” by technological interventions, with significant consequences. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2018. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Sociology.

In my thesis I deal with the concept of meaningful work in a platform economy. Meaningful work is a theoretical as well as a practical problem that exists across various fields of study. Meaningful work is increasingly important topic, which corresponds with actual problems that workers face in their workplace. The main goal of the thesis is to inquire if and how is this concept useful to describe the working conditions of emerging platform economy, which strengthens the class conflict at the workplace. I research this problem on the case of Viennese food delivery service Mjam with application of the method of the phenomenological analysis, which enabled me to study dailiness and experiencing of meaningfulness of work of the couriers. For the analysis, I conducted semi-structured interviews with the riders. Even though the couriers experience occasionally meaningfulness as well as meaninglessness at the workplace, the thesis shows that this concept is rather used to rephrase their crucial problems of the workplace. The researched literature partially ignores the real problems of workers in their workplace as well as the complexity and heterogeneity of the problem of meaningful work.

Les initiatives visant à développer le covoiturage au quotidien et sur de courtes distances font l’objet d’une attention croissante d’acteurs privés et publics depuis l’essor de la pratique sur de longues distances. Cette thèse analyse la manière dont les services de covoiturage intègrent le champ de l’action publique et interroge les transformations qu’ils occasionnent sur le système de mobilité en place. La thèse est structurée en quatre parties. Le cadrage théorique et méthodologique précise la démarche de recherche, qui s’ancre sur trois entrées : les relations entre territoire et système de mobilité, le changement dans l’action publique et le processus de diffusion des innovations dans la société. Ces approches théoriques sont mobilisées pour répondre à la problématique et étudier des expérimentations de services de covoiturage dans les franges de l’Île-de-France (partie 1). La seconde partie retrace la généalogie du covoiturage pour montrer comment il s’affirme comme nouvel élément du système de mobilité et comme un objet d’action publique (partie 2). Nous étudions ensuite le processus de diffusion du covoiturage et l’ampleur de son intégration au sein de l’action publique de transport (partie 3) avant d’analyser les transformations provoquées sur le système de mobilité (partie 4).Cette recherche précise comment les politiques publiques de promotion du covoiturage, initialement mises en œuvre pour limiter les externalités négatives de l’automobile, tendent désormais à concurrencer l’offre de transport publique routière. Ce travail montre ensuite comment s’ouvre une fenêtre d’opportunité pour le développement du covoiturage en France et expose les difficultés que rencontrent les acteurs de l’action publique pour s’approprier cette innovation. La thèse rend également compte de l’émergence de nouvelles formes de services de covoiturage, de nature infrastructurelle, qui favorisent la territorialisation des politiques publiques de covoiturage et l’intégration de ce mode dans le champ du service public de transport. Dans un dernier temps, cette recherche montre qu’en tendant vers une hybridation des modèles de transport collectif-public et individuel-privé, le covoiturage ébranle les principes du service public et promeut une représentation libérale de la notion d’intérêt général. Ce faisant, plus qu’il ne remet en cause les logiques sur lesquelles se fonde notre système de mobilité, il participe au renforcement du système automobile. Ce travail mesure ainsi les limites d’une logique de croissance et d’individualisation des services de mobilités et conclut en proposant des pistes pour optimiser le covoiturage en limitant le risque que les gains de performances promis par ce nouveau modèle ne renforcent trop, à terme, les externalités négatives du système automobile / Initiatives aiming to develop carpools on a daily basis have been receiving increasing attention from private and public stakeholders since the rise of long-distance practice. This thesis analyzes how do carpooling services fit the field of public action and the transformations they cause on the mobility system in place. The thesis is structured in four parts. The theoretical and methodological framework specifies the research approach, which is anchored upon three entries: the relationship between the territory and the mobility system, the change in public action and the process of diffusion of innovations in society. These theoretical approaches are mobilized for an-swering to the research question and analyzing experiments of carpool services in the fringes of Ile-de-France (part 1). The second part traces the genealogy of carpooling and demonstrates how it becomes a new element of the public transport system and an object of public policies (part 2). We then study the diffusion process of the innovation and the extent of its integration into the public transport action (part 3), before analyzing the transformations caused on the mobility system (part 4).This research specifies how public policies promoting carpool were originally implemented to limit the negative externalities of the automobile system, and now tends to compete with the public road transport offer. This work then shows how a policy window open for the development of carpooling in France and exposes the difficulties that actors of the public action meets to appropriate this innovation. This research also presents the emergence of new forms of carpool infrastructure-related services, which favors the territorialization of carpool in the public transport policies and the integration of this mode of transport in the public’s utilities. Lastly, this research shows that, by tending towards a hybridization of public-private and individual-private transport models, carpooling un-dermines the principles of public service and promotes a liberal representation of the no-tion of general interest. In doing so, it is more likely that it strengthened the automobile system rather than it modifies it. Finally, this work demonstrate the limits of the growth and the individualization of mobility services and concludes by proposing ways to optimize carpooling by limiting the risk that the performance gains promised by this new model will reinforce, over time, the negative externalities of the automobile system

This thesis studies online video game live streamers. The study aims to explore the interrelationship of play and labor within streaming. Through this exploration, the study also enquires about the emerging platform economy. Streamers share their gameplay with viewers, interact through the accompanying live chat and subside mainly on donations from their audience. Streaming turns the leisure activity of gaming into a part-time or full-time subsistence pursuit. Twitch.tv, like other social media platforms, exists within the platform economy, inhabiting novel positions both in contexts of the global economy and in relations to laborers and consumers. Achieving the studies’ aim is done via methods of ethnographic interviewing, digital participant observation, and endeavoring into streaming. In fulfilling the thesis purpose, contemporary anthropological theories of play, labor, and the platform economy are utilized by the author in analyzing the ethnographic material. The main results of the study showcase the economic realities of streamers in Sweden. The conditions streamers exist within are characterized by spatiotemporal dislocation of labor, the commodification of play, mental struggles, and the platform economy's embedded precarity. The work contributes to the sub-fields of digital anthropology, new media studies, digital play & labor, and studies of the platform economy. Studying streamers aids the production of emic knowledge within these crucial disciplines of understanding.

The present project provides a survey of contemporary work relations in the context of the so-called gig economy (also known as the sharing, collaborative, platform, and on-demand economy). Against the background of recent concerns over automation replacing work at a large scale, the project argues instead that the displacement of work warrants more critical attention. The project examines how the gig economy presents their services as automating technologies while downplaying the ways that workers' employment, not to mention lives, are made increasingly precarious by these alleged improvements. Specifically, the project surveys three gig-economies, the ride-hailing service Uber, the home-sharing service Airbnb, and the online labor marketplace Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT). Methodologically, the project employs an interdisciplinary approach, integrating insights from political economy, critical theory, discourse analysis, and ethnographic research. A qualitative assessment of the respective work environments shifts a relatively apolitical discourse on the future of work not only toward a more pronounced critique of the gig economy, but also toward a renewed discussion on the kinds of jobs that earn the labels of freelance and entrepreneurship. Professionals and scholars concerned with the future of work stand to benefit from the findings of the research, particularly as it challenges some commonplace assumptions in the discourse of what has been termed postcapitalism. / Ph. D. / The present project provides a survey of contemporary work relations in the context of the so-called gig economy (also known as the sharing, collaborative, platform, and ondemand economy). Against the background of recent concerns over automation replacing work at a large scale, the project argues instead that the displacement of work warrants more critical attention. The project examines how the gig economy presents their services as automating technologies while downplaying the ways that workers’ employment, not to mention lives, are made increasingly precarious by these alleged improvements. Specifically, the project surveys three gig economies, the ride-hailing service Uber, the home-sharing service Airbnb, and the online labor marketplace Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT). Methodologically, the project employs an interdisciplinary approach, integrating insights from political economy, critical theory, discourse analysis, and ethnographic research. A qualitative assessment of the respective work environments shifts a relatively apolitical discourse on the future of work not only toward a more pronounced critique of the gig economy, but also toward a renewed discussion on the kinds of jobs that earn the labels of freelance and entrepreneurship. Professionals and scholars concerned with the future of work stand to benefit from the findings of the research, particularly as it challenges some commonplace assumptions in the discourse of what has been termed postcapitalism.

[pt] Nesta tese, examinamos como as Tecnologias da Informação e da Comunicação (TICs) se desenvolveram na China a partir de especificidades históricas, do papel do Estado e das empresas privadas de tecnologia, organizadas dentro de uma economia de plataformas, considerada setor estratégico para a política de modernização empreendida pelo Estado chinês. Esta pesquisa está situada no subcampo da Economia Política da Comunicação (EPC), derivada da Crítica da Economia Política que, por seu caráter transversal a diferentes campos das Ciências Sociais, pode fornecer ferramentas importantes para compreender fenômenos comunicacionais e culturais nas novas configurações das sociedades informacionais. Definimos como objetivos deste trabalho reconstruir o caminho do desenvolvimento das Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação (TICs) na China nos séculos XX e XXI e seus impactos econômicos e políticos, além de examinar como se estruturam as big techs chinesas e suas versões globais, suas características e como tais empresas privadas se relacionam com o Estado. Utilizamos como procedimentos metodológicos a pesquisa bibliográfica e a análise documental, contemplando uma literatura que permite olhar a China a partir de sua experiência imperial e revolucionária, além de discussões conceituais sobre plataformas e o processo de enraizamento de estruturas digitais na vida cotidiana, chamado de plataformização. A análise de documentos permitiu mapear o estado da plataformização na China, os desafios, os tensionamentos e como isso se articula dentro da nova onda de progresso técnico com consequências diretas sobre dinâmicas de produção e de acumulação de capital. Concluímos que, embora o desenvolvimento das TICs tenha conduzido a China a desafios semelhantes aos enfrentados por países ocidentais como a formação de monopólios de empresas de plataformas, cujos modelos de negócios estão amparados na coleta e análise massiva de dados, há especificidades importantes que não permitem o mero espelhamento das estruturas das plataformas chinesas com as ocidentais, notadamente as estadunidenses. Tendo tomado, inicialmente, as plataformas dos EUA como inspiração, as chinesas aproveitaram brechas dentro da organização chinesa para desenvolver arranjos absolutamente particulares nos níveis social e econômico e também político. / [en] In this thesis, we examine how Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have developed in China based on historical specificities, the role of the State and private technology companies structured within a platform economy model, considered a strategic sector for the modernization policy deployed by the Chinese State. This research is situated in the subfield of the Political Economy of Communication (PEC) context, which derives from the Critique of Political Economy, which in turn, due to its transversal nature across different fields of Social Sciences, it can provide important tools to understand communication and cultural phenomena in the new configurations of information societies. The objectives of this work are to reconstruct the path of development of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in China in the 20th and 21st centuries, and to examine their economic and politic impacts. Additionally, the study will analyze how Chinese big techs and their global versions are structured, their characteristics, and how such private companies relate to the State. In this research, we use bibliographic research and documentary analysis as methodological procedures, contemplating literature that allows us to look at China from its imperial and revolutionary experience, as well as conceptual discussions on platforms and the process of embedding digital structures in everyday life, called platformization. Document analysis allowed us to map the state of platformization in China, the challenges, the tensions, and how this articulates within the new wave of technical progress with direct consequences on production dynamics and capital accumulation. We conclude that although the development of ICTs has led China to challenges similar to those faced by Western countries, such as the formation of platform company monopolies, whose business models are supported by massive data collection and analysis, there are important specificities that do not allow a mere reflection of Chinese platform structures with Western ones, notably American ones. Having initially taken inspiration from North American platforms, the Chinese have taken advantage of gaps within the Chinese organization to develop arrangements that are absolutely particular at the social, economic and political levels.

The topic of gig-work has been widely debated in the western world for its laborrights and work environment issues. Whereas companies operating within thegig-economy boast the freedom and flexibility of gig-work as perks for workers,unions highlight the precarious nature and poor working conditions of gig-workas exploitative of workers and push for unionizing gig-workers and getting themcovered by collective bargaining agreements. However, due to the novelty of thephenomenon, not much scholarly work has been done on the subject and its longterm implications for the labor markets of developed capitalist countries.In Sweden, conditions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic led to an influx ofworkers in the food-delivery sector due to increased demands for services andhigh unemployment as gig-work was regarded as a means to sustain one’slivelihood during a time of economic uncertainty. As these food-delivery couriershad to work outside the home, where the chance of contracting the virus was high,while also having jobs where they were not regarded as employees, the aim ofthis thesis project was to investigate how the Covid-19 pandemic has affectedfood-delivery couriers’ perceived exposure to psychosocial stressors and risksthrough a qualitative interview study. The findings were generated throughinductive reasoning from analyzing conducted six interviews and discussedthrough the lens of the Human, Technology and Organization (HTO)-model andthe Job-Demands-Control-Support (JDCS)-model. / Gig-arbete har diskuterats i stor utsträckning i västvärlden för dess arbetsmiljöoch rättighetsrelaterade problem. Medan företag som verkar inom gig-ekonominframhäver flexibilitet och frihet av gig-arbete som förmåner för arbetare, menarfackföreningar att de prekära och osäkra arbetsförhållandena gällande gig-arbeteär exploaterande gentemot arbetare och vill därmed se dem organiserade ifackföreningar och täckta av kollektivtal. På grund av att området är nytt, så harinte mycket vetenskaplig forskning skett i detta ämne och dess långsiktigakonsekvenser på de utvecklade kapitalistiska ländernas arbetsmarknader.I Sverige ledde förhållandena orsakade av Covid-19-pandemin till entillströmning av arbetare i matleveranssektorn på grund av ökad efterfrågan frånkunder och hög arbetslöshet eftersom gig-arbete betraktades som ett sätt attupprätthålla sitt levebröd under en tid av ekonomisk osäkerhet. Dåmatleveranskurirerna var tvungna att arbeta utanför hemmet, där chansen att fåviruset var hög, samtidigt som de hade jobb där de inte betraktades som anställda,var syftet med detta examensarbete att undersöka hur Covid-19-pandemin hadepåverkat matleveranskurirernas upplevda exponering för psykosociala stress- ochriskfaktorer genom en kvalitativ intervjustudie. Resultaten genererades genominduktivt resonemang från analyser av sex genomförda intervjuer som sedandiskuterades utifrån Människa, Teknologi, Organisation (MTO)-modellen samtJob-Demands-Control-Support (JDCS)-modellen.

Die aktuellen Debatten im Feld der Digitalen Geographie und der Arbeitsgeographie zeigen, dass digitale Plattformen nicht neutrale Vermittelnde von digitalen Interaktionsmöglichkeiten sind, die in einem entfernten digitalen Cyberspace operieren. Stattdessen beruht die Funktionalität digitaler Plattformen auf zeitintensiven Arbeitspraktiken, die von den Nutzenden der Plattform zwischen digitalen und sozial-materiellen Räumen durchgeführt und von den Plattformunternehmen gesteuert werden. Vor diesem Hintergrund besteht das übergeordnete Forschungsziel der Dissertation darin, die Räume und die Zeitlichkeit zu erforschen, die von dem Plattformunternehmen und den Nutzenden gemeinsam, aber dennoch konfliktreich konstruiert werden. Es wird eine Perspektive auf die Produktion von plattformvermittelten Zeiträumen und deren Friktionen herausgearbeitet. Die alltägliche Aushandlung von digitalen Zeit-Räumen wird als Zeit-Raum-Reibung entwickelt. Um die plattformgestützte Vermittlung von Zeit und Raum und ihre Reibungen empirisch aufzuarbeiten, kommt das Instrumentarium einer digitalen Ethnographie zum Einsatz. Dieser Ansatz ermöglicht die detailreiche Untersuchung der Wechselbeziehung von Plattformoberflächen, Nutzungspraktiken und Erfahrungen in einem spezifischen Fall. Es wird die Arbeit selbständiger Berliner Modeunternehmer:innen analysiert, die zwischen Offline-Räumen und der digitalen Plattform Instagram erfolgt. Die Dissertation unterstreicht die Verbindung von Perspektiven der Digitalen Geographie und der Arbeitsgeographie. So können kritische Einblicke in die tägliche Arbeit, die Aushandlungen und die Machtverhältnisse gewonnen werden, die der Ausgestaltung von Zeit und Raum im digitalen Kapitalismus zugrunde liegen. Schließlich zeigt die Dissertation, wie qualitative Online- und Offline-Methoden miteinander verschränkt werden können, um eine detaillierte, fallspezifische Analyse der Produktion digital vermittelter Zeiträume und ihrer Aushandlungsprozesse offenzulegen. / Current digital and labor geography debates reveal that daily spaces represent a web of interconnected online and offline spaces. This implies that not only has the web become platformized, but work practices and daily tempo-spatial relations have also been structured by the spaces of digital platforms and their models of value capture. Therefore, digital platforms are not merely asset-light matchmakers operating in distant digital cyberspace. They are deeply embedded in the fabric of daily life. The dissertation aims to uncover the platform mediation of time and space and its frictions. The concept of platform-mediated timespace suggests that platform interfaces, human practices, and socio-material relations intricately and seamlessly shape the configuration of space and the perception of time. Platform-mediated time and space are negotiated and contested between platform capitalism and platform labor. This contested production of digitally mediated timespace is defined as timespace friction. Methodologically, a digital ethnography is employed to investigate the interplay between platform interfaces, user practices, and experiences in a specific case of platform mediation. The study analyzes independent fashion entrepreneurs in Berlin who work between offline spaces and the digital platform Instagram. Against this backdrop, the dissertation urges the field of digital geography to move beyond notions of augmented digital space. Instead, in combination with a labor geography perspective, it suggests gaining more critical insights into the daily work, negotiations, and power relations underlying the creation of platform-mediated timespace in digital capitalism. Finally, the dissertation advocates for the application of mediated methods in researching mediated timespaces. It demonstrates how a detailed, case-specific digital ethnography can provide insights into the production of digitally mediated spacetime and its struggles.