Author: saienglert

What is at Stake in the Study of Settler Colonialism?

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Settler colonialism, those colonial processes based on the aim of permanently settling metropolitan populations on indigenous lands, and – crucially – the struggle against it, have been at the centre of many of the key political developments of the last three decades. Starting with the movements of the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas and the first Palestinian intifada, indigenous resistance against settler colonial rule have played a central role in the reconstruction of progressive and revolutionary politics in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent ideological crisis it generated. 

More recently, indigenous movements against land expropriation and pipeline construction in North America, the intensification of settler colonial policies in Kashmir, and the coup against the MAS government of Evo Morales in Bolivia – to name but a few – continue to point to the central place these processes occupy in contemporary political struggles. They also illustrate powerfully the centrality of settler colonial dispossession in global strategies of capital accumulation and class rule. Far from being a historical issue, albeit one with present-day consequences, settler colonialism is a key aspect of contemporary capitalism. 

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Digital Workerism: Technology, Platforms, and the Circulation of Workers’ Struggles

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UberTaxiProtestChicagoBy Callum Cant, Sai Englert and Jamie Woodcock

The so-called platform economy – the distribution of, and access to work through websites and apps – continues to grab headlines and the imagination of policy makers, researchers, and journalists the world over. Much attention is given to its rapid expansion, its potential for further growth, and the large amounts of wealth generated through it.

Amongst many others, PWC (2015) published a much-quoted study, if not always critically, which projected global revenues of $335 billion in 2025. If those numbers are potentially inflated, different valuations do point to a significant financial importance. For example, in 2015 ‘17 companies operating in the platform economy were valued at over $1 billion. Of these 17, 12 were based in the US, one in India (Olacabs), one in China (Kuaidi Dache), one in Australia (Freelancer), one in New Zealand (Trademe) and one in the UK (TransferWise)’.

Alongside these macro observations, an equally large amount of ink continues to be spilt about the liberating nature of the platform for the worker (for a particularly excited account see here). The gig worker, we are told, is entering a new reality free of the constraints of oppressive 9-5 employment, far away from the controlling gaze of their manager, able to choose when to work, set their own wages, and whom to work for. A new dawn of democratised entrepreneurialism is supposedly upon us.

Yet the actual evidence is – perhaps unsurprisingly – less rosy. Across the world, platform workers are confronted with the fact that, far from liberating them (or replacing them), new technologies play a disciplining role, deepening many of the characteristics of working conditions in a neoliberal economy: ranging from insecure and precarious employment relations, to greater managerial oversight and debt control. Callum Cant has masterfully documented some of these processes in his recent book on Deliveroo riders, as Jamie Woodcock and Mark Graham have done in their critical introduction to the gig economy. Read More »