Embodied Precariat and Digital Control in the “Gig Economy”: The Mobile Labor of Food Delivery Workers

Abstract

The promises of flexible work and instant deliveries promoted through food delivery apps are one of the latest trends within the “gig economy” and lay at the forefront of smart city agendas. This article focuses on the work undertaken by Deliveroo couriers to investigate how they embody, negotiate, and contest the “smartness” of the platform. Drawing on ethnographic research in London and Manchester, analysis of internal online communication, and interviews with workers, the article examines how competing understandings of “smartness” emerge in response to algorithmic management in the workplace. This paper conceptualizes two distinctive yet overlapping attitudes among couriers—entrepreneurialism and solidarity—and discusses their implications for the future of platform work.