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The Work to Make Piecework Work: An Ethnographic Study of Food Delivery Work in India During the COVID-19 Pandemic

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Barry BrownAuthors Info & Claims

Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, Volume 7, Issue CSCW2

Article No.: 243, Pages 1 - 23

https://doi.org/10.1145/3610034

Published: 04 October 2023 Publication History

Abstract

This paper considers food delivery work as a form of piecework that is conducted via a particular workflow system -- the food delivery platform and its delivery app. We offer an ethnographic account of food delivery labor during the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Indian city of Pune. Our inquiry is focused on (1) the workflow that structures food delivery work and (2) how economic considerations shape how workers work with and around the workflow. Our findings depict both the workflow that structures the delivery work and the efforts workers make beyond it to deal with contingencies and unexpected requirements they encounter on the ground. We recognize the workers' efforts as essential to make the workflow work but also to make the piecework arrangement work for them. We highlight how, in this setting, money is not just the motivation for engaging in gig work; rather, economic considerations infuse every aspect of the work process. Acknowledging the distinct shape gig work takes in a Global South context, our study highlights the value of in-depth,in situ understandings of how gig workers' economic considerations are entangled with their interactions with the technology that structures their work. Our key contribution lies in mapping outthe workflow of piecework andthe work to make piecework work, specifically in a Global South setting, by drawing upon classic CSCW themes around workflows and piecework to strengthen the contemporary scholarly discussion concerning gig work.

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Cited By

Cheon EKhovanskaya V(2024)Amazon Z to A: Speculative Design to Understand the Future of Labor-Intensive WorkplacesProceedings of the 2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3643834.3661561(314-327)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3643834.3661561
Shaikh RSingh ABrown BLampinen A(2024)Not Just A Dot on The Map: Food Delivery Workers as InfrastructureProceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3641918(1-15)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3641918
Shaikh RMcGregor MBrown BLampinen A(2024)Fleeting Alliances and Frugal Collaboration in Piecework: A Video-Analysis of Food Delivery Work in IndiaComputer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW)10.1007/s10606-024-09501-1Online publication date: 21-Jun-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10606-024-09501-1
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

The Work to Make Piecework Work: An Ethnographic Study of Food Delivery Work in India During the COVID-19 Pandemic
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Collaborative and social computing
    1. Empirical studies in collaborative and social computing
  2. Human computer interaction (HCI)
    1. Empirical studies in HCI

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cover image Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction

Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction Volume 7, Issue CSCW2

CSCW

October 2023

4055 pages

EISSN:2573-0142

DOI:10.1145/3626953

Editor:
Jeff Nichols
Apple Inc., United States

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Copyright © 2023 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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Published: 04 October 2023

Published in PACMHCI Volume 7, Issue CSCW2

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Cited By

Cheon EKhovanskaya V(2024)Amazon Z to A: Speculative Design to Understand the Future of Labor-Intensive WorkplacesProceedings of the 2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3643834.3661561(314-327)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3643834.3661561
Shaikh RSingh ABrown BLampinen A(2024)Not Just A Dot on The Map: Food Delivery Workers as InfrastructureProceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3641918(1-15)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3641918
Shaikh RMcGregor MBrown BLampinen A(2024)Fleeting Alliances and Frugal Collaboration in Piecework: A Video-Analysis of Food Delivery Work in IndiaComputer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW)10.1007/s10606-024-09501-1Online publication date: 21-Jun-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10606-024-09501-1
Xiao LFitzgerald RSandel TKim YAbi-Sâmara RMoutinho R(2024)On Algorithmic Time and Daily Contingencies in the Lived Work of Food Delivery ServiceComputer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW)10.1007/s10606-024-09500-2Online publication date: 22-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10606-024-09500-2

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