Abstract
In a global context of social metamorphosis, it is important to understand how and why the reconfiguration of work experiences comes about in relation to the modifications produced by the digitalisation of society. All areas of people's lives are colonised by the logic of the digital, and the different work experiences are affected. This chapter aims to explore the connections between these two critical dimensions of the social structuration process in Latin America, which have reached a superlative role in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to do that, it considers “digital labor” and particularly the work of deliveries by platforms as a paradigmatic experience that condenses the tendencies mentioned. The selected argumentative strategy proposes to contextualize the expansion of “digital labor” in the region by drawing from the analysis of secondary data, and from primary data generated through virtual ethnography oriented to capture the experiences of workers (deliveries by platforms).
TopAt the start of a new millennium, complex societies demand reductionist viewpoints revolving around the understanding each society has about itself. What we call here the “metamorphosis” of the “world of work” and the “digitalisation” of societies constitutes two of the social processes that, undoubtedly, comprise key elements of the experience of living in the 21st century. If capitalist modernity was successful in the configuration of a global “integrated” system during the 19th and 20th centuries, it was –among others– under the condition that some more or less widespread ways of managing the availability of subjects and their productive energies be diffused. Beyond the material symmetries and cultural diversities that plagued the tensions among regions, the modern and Western notion of work associates with a set of practices that permeate day-to-day life.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Economy: Is an area of the production, distribution and exchange that often administers or deals with scarce goods.
Division of Labour: It is a process known as the division of skills, specialization and roles to optimize the economic system and labour market. The notion of specialization is a homologous term.
COVID-19: A new virus (known as SARSCOv2) originated in Wuhan, China. This virus rapidly expanded to the four continents constituting as one of the worst pandemics of the 21 st century.
Work Precaritization: It denotes the precarious existence of some groups or individuals who are systematically exploited by a unilaterally imposed system or by a selective group of persons. The term associates to job unemployment or political instability.
Digital Society: The term signals to a society mainly marked by the monopoly and distribution of digital technologies.