“Start Without Pressure!”: (In)visibilisation of Gig Work through Worker Heterogeneity in Seoul

• In Event: Labor and Labor Movements Section Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Roundtable 3: Tech Labor, Platform Capitalism, and Algorithmic Labor Control

Abstract

Research on gig work has often treated workers’ experiences and platform control as analytically distinct and largely one-directional processes. This article shifts the analytical lens to the reciprocal interplay between heterogeneous workers and platforms in shaping how work is organised and governed. Drawing on ten months of ethnographic fieldwork in Seoul, South Korea, it examines how Baemin—the country’s largest food-delivery platform—mobilises worker heterogeneity as a mechanism of control. Extending feminist insights on invisible labour, the article analyses three interrelated dimensions—recognition, skills, and space–time dynamics—to demonstrate how the platform renders some workers legible while obscuring others, reinforcing representations of gig labour as light, flexible, and detached from livelihood. By comparing economically dependent, full-time couriers with occasional workers who participate primarily for leisure or supplementary income, the article shows that control in the platform economy emerges through dynamic, relational interactions among workers, platform practices, and local social conditions.

Author

• Youngrong Lee, McMaster University