A Relational Work Perspective on the Gig Economy: Doing Creative Work on Digital Labour Platforms

Based on interviews with 49 visual artists, graphic designers and illustrators working on two leading global digital labour platforms, this article examines how creative workers perform relational work as a means of attenuating labour commodification, precarity, and algorithmic normativity. The arti...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inWork, employment and society Vol. 38; no. 1; pp. 161 - 179
Main Authors Alacovska, Ana, Bucher, Eliane, Fieseler, Christian
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London, England SAGE Publications 01.02.2024
Sage Publications Ltd
Subjects
Algorithms
Artists
Client relationships
Commodification
Economic sociology
Gig economy
Inequality
Interpersonal relations
Labor market
Market forces
Transactions
Work
Workers
visual artists
creative work
digital labour platforms
gig economy
platform work
relational work
creative labour
gig work
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Summary:Based on interviews with 49 visual artists, graphic designers and illustrators working on two leading global digital labour platforms, this article examines how creative workers perform relational work as a means of attenuating labour commodification, precarity, and algorithmic normativity. The article argues that creative work on online labour platforms, rather than being entirely controlled by depersonalised, anonymised and algorithm-driven labour market forces, is also infused in relational infrastructures whose upkeep, solidity and durability depends on the emotional efforts undertaken by workers to match economic transactions and their media of exchange to meaningful client relations. By applying a relational work perspective from economic sociology to the study of platform-mediated gig work, the article elucidates the micro-foundations of creative work in the digital gig economy, including how labour inequalities are produced and reproduced within and around micro-level interpersonal interactions.
ISSN:0950-0170
1469-8722
DOI:10.1177/09500170221103146