Mission Impossible? A Review of Kylie Jarrett’s Book Digital Labor

Abstract

This article reviews Kylie Jarrett’s new book Digital Labor (2022, Cambridge: Polity Press). Jarrett develops a precise definition of digital labour to meet the objection that the term has been over-extended. This article argues that, despite much thought-provoking analysis of the different categories included in her definition and imaginative attempts to link them, the book fails to establish that digital labour in an extended sense has any distinct meaning separate from more general developments in work in contemporary capitalism.