2024-2025 Academic Catalog

Nov 21, 2024

2024-2025 Academic Catalog

ID 217 - Gig Cities: Work and Inequality

The internet, newly designed digital platforms, and advances in telecommunications have transformed the way we communicate, advertise, monitor, work, educate, or the way we plan cities. This class will focus on the way such digital platforms and the internet have impacted urban livelihoods and the way people work in cities of the Global North and South. Presumably, in the knowledge-based, technology-driven society, the race to achieve higher levels of development and productivity become one of expanding the human capital base of societies and countries. Thomas Piketty, in his Capital in the 21st Century, called this trend the “rising human capital hypothesis”. However, in his book he also poses a very provoking question: “Has the apparently growing importance of human capital over the course of history has been an illusion?” Whereas some “futurists” predicted “flex-solutions” and benefits for workers and corporations alike, the story is far more complex. Structural and institutional forces seem inducing further deterioration in human capital and job quality, further growth in low-wage employment, labor market deregulation, self-exploitation, and evasion of labor laws, among other trends. In cities of the Global North, “gig workers” are protesting the lack of regulation of companies such as Uber or Lyft, and the abuse by faceless “algorithms”. In cities of the Global South, “gig workers” have experienced, for instance, even further “informalization” of work. In class, will cover changes on how the “gig economy” transformed urban transportation, food delivery, creative arts, “temp work and services”, “time management patterns”, and created new forms of employment. The class will draw from interdisciplinary materials in the social sciences, political economy, technology studies, and sociology. Occasionally, we will use a variety of audiovisual materials as well.

Course Designation/Attribute: GP

Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually