Roads as means of production and a class construct: Ethnographic perspective on value creation in food delivery gig platforms

Abstract

The rise of platform-mediated gig work has contributed to the emergence of novel urbanscapes across the world. Recent scholarship has begun to recognise the decentralised and spatiotemporally fragmented nature of work organisation on digital labour platforms. However, the relationship between gig workers and their workplace, that is, the road itself, remains relatively underexplored. This article examines the dual role of roads within the labour process of food delivery platforms. First, it demonstrates how roads, in tandem with the information and communication technology infrastructure of gig platforms, function as a means of production through which workers deploy their labour to produce delivery service commodities. Second, it argues that roads also constitute a social space shaped by the caste and class hierarchies embedded in local political and social relations. These dual dimensions were uncovered through the author’s participation as a food delivery worker in New Delhi, India, which enabled access to otherwise opaque aspects of the labour process. The analysis also relies on ethnographic accounts of food delivery workers, which illuminate the central role that roads play in the process of value generation and how workers navigate through the endemic hostilities of the roads.