scholarly journals Work Precarity and Gig Literacies in Online Freelancing

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 457-475 ◽  
Author(s):  
Will Sutherland ◽  
Mohammad Hossein Jarrahi ◽  
Michael Dunn ◽  
Sarah Beth Nelson
Keyword(s):  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Holding Environment ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
Gig Economy ◽  
Critical Literacies ◽  
Work Strategies ◽  
And Control

Many workers have been drawn to the gig economy by the promise of flexible, autonomous work, but scholars have highlighted how independent working arrangements also come with the drawbacks of precarity. Digital platforms appear to provide an alternative to certain aspects of precarity by helping workers find work consistently and securely. However, these platforms also introduce their own demands and constraints. Drawing on 20 interviews with online freelancers, 19 interviews with corresponding clients and a first-hand walkthrough of the Upwork platform, we identify critical literacies (what we call gig literacies), which are emerging around online freelancing. We find that gig workers must adapt their skills and work strategies in order to leverage platforms creatively and productively, and as a component of their ‘personal holding environment’. This involves not only using the resources provided by the platform effectively, but also negotiating or working around its imposed structures and control mechanisms.

Structuring the Haystack

2021 ◽  
pp. 246-268
Author(s):  
Eliane Bucher ◽  
Peter Kalum Schou ◽  
Matthias Waldkirch ◽  
Eduard Grünwald ◽  
David Antons
Keyword(s):  
High Performance ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Mixed Methodology ◽  
Community Interactions ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
Gig Economy ◽  
And Control ◽  
Insight Into

Large-scale online communities, such as Reddit or Quora, have emerged as promising research contexts, offering insight into an unprecedented range of real-time user discourses. However, researchers striving to access, collect, and meaningfully process such conversation data face a trade-off between capturing breadth (structures, relationships) and depth (content, meaning) of community interactions. Building on a mixed-methodology design, our contribution offers an avenue to harness and combine advantages of both approaches, first by clustering the data based on a theoretically derived dictionary (discovering structure) and second by qualitatively coding and interpreting the resulting clusters (discovering meaning). We illustrate this methodological approach with data collected from a community of online workers on Reddit where we focused on how human resource management (HRM) practices transform in the gig economy and how digital platforms use a hybrid HRM system that combines elements of high-performance and control-oriented HRM philosophies.

scholarly journals ‘Going Karura’: colliding subjectivities and labour struggle in Nairobi's gig economy

2021 ◽  
pp. 0308518X2110319
Author(s):  
Gianluca Iazzolino
Keyword(s):  
Physical Space ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
International Capital ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
Independent Contractors ◽  
Middle Income Countries ◽  
Gig Economy ◽  
The One ◽  
The City

Based on an ethnography of Uber drivers in Nairobi, my article explores practices of contestation of the gig economy taking place both in the digital and physical space of the city. It argues that the labour struggle against the price policies and the control mechanisms of ride-hailing platforms such as Uber foregrounds the tension between a subjectification from above, in which the platforms construct the drivers as independent contractors and the shaping of subjectivities through the interaction of the drivers with the digital platforms and with one another. It also suggests that, through contestation, as the one catalysed by the call to ‘go Karura’, logging off from the app, the workers connect their struggle to a broader critique of processes of exploitation, dependency and subalternity involving the state and international capital. While contributing to the growing literature on the gig economy in low- and middle-income countries, my article brings the labour geography scholarship exploring how workers collectively shape economic spaces in conversation with the intellectual tradition of Italian Operaismo (workerism). In doing so, it highlights the nexus of labour subjectivity and collective agency as mutually constitutive.

Sea Disposal of Sludge – The U.K. Experience

1983 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugh Fish
Keyword(s):  
Sewage Sludge ◽  
Environmental Damage ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
And Control

A broad summary is made of the U.K. experience in sea-disposal of sewage sludge, embracing operations and effects, and control mechanisms, at disposal authority, national and international levels. The conclusion is reached that U.K. practice, while not perfect and in need of more research, is satisfactory and could be extended without causing environmental damage.

scholarly journals Probing the Interactions of Porphyrins with Macromolecules Using NMR Spectroscopy Techniques

Molecules ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (7) ◽  
pp. 1942
Author(s):  
Ilche Gjuroski ◽  
Julien Furrer ◽  
Martina Vermathen
Keyword(s):  
Nmr Spectroscopy ◽  
Photophysical Properties ◽  
Optical Methods ◽  
Spectroscopic Techniques ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Dynamic Information ◽  
Non Covalent Interactions ◽  
And Control ◽  
And Diffusion ◽  
Covalent Interactions

Porphyrinic compounds are widespread in nature and play key roles in biological processes such as oxygen transport in blood, enzymatic redox reactions or photosynthesis. In addition, both naturally derived as well as synthetic porphyrinic compounds are extensively explored for biomedical and technical applications such as photodynamic therapy (PDT) or photovoltaic systems, respectively. Their unique electronic structures and photophysical properties make this class of compounds so interesting for the multiple functions encountered. It is therefore not surprising that optical methods are typically the prevalent analytical tool applied in characterization and processes involving porphyrinic compounds. However, a wealth of complementary information can be obtained from NMR spectroscopic techniques. Based on the advantage of providing structural and dynamic information with atomic resolution simultaneously, NMR spectroscopy is a powerful method for studying molecular interactions between porphyrinic compounds and macromolecules. Such interactions are of special interest in medical applications of porphyrinic photosensitizers that are mostly combined with macromolecular carrier systems. The macromolecular surrounding typically stabilizes the encapsulated drug and may also modify its physical properties. Moreover, the interaction with macromolecular physiological components needs to be explored to understand and control mechanisms of action and therapeutic efficacy. This review focuses on such non-covalent interactions of porphyrinic drugs with synthetic polymers as well as with biomolecules such as phospholipids or proteins. A brief introduction into various NMR spectroscopic techniques is given including chemical shift perturbation methods, NOE enhancement spectroscopy, relaxation time measurements and diffusion-ordered spectroscopy. How these NMR tools are used to address porphyrin–macromolecule interactions with respect to their function in biomedical applications is the central point of the current review.

On Some Issues of Legal Regulation of the Pharmaceutical Retail Market: the Concept of “Pharmacy Chains”, Special Antitrust Laws and Control Mechanisms

2021 ◽  
pp. 80-86
Author(s):  
A. N. Varlamova
Keyword(s):  
Product Market ◽  
Legal Regulation ◽  
Pharmaceutical Market ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Retail Market ◽  
Preferential Treatment ◽  
Antitrust Laws ◽  
Competitive Relations ◽  
And Control

Competition in the pharmaceutical market is a necessary factor providing an opportunity for citizens to purchase quality goods at affordable prices. Regulation of competitive relations in the market in question can and should have its own characteristics. Opposing monopolization of the retail market by pharmacy chains, setting “reasonable” prices, providing preferential treatment for Russian manufacturers in the promotion of goods are the issues that the legislator should pay attention to when improving regulation of this industry product market.

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