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et al., 2021 ): instead of humanitarians bearing responsibility for the outcomes of humanitarian assistance on refugees, it is instead ‘upward accountability’ to donors that is the primary mode of accountability engagement ( Daun, 2020 ). Yet outcomes of digital work for refugees are particularly important to consider, as this type of work is generally linked to the global gig economy, itself inherently intertwined with job precarity and global
opportunities around the world. Digital labour platforms and the online gig economy now promise access to work for anyone with an internet connection, a computer and the right skillset. Inspired by this promise, governments, civil society, social enterprises and international organisations in the humanitarian and development sectors, including the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the World Food Programme (WFP), the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the Norwegian Refugee Council
2022 ). Hunt , A. , Samman , E. and Mansour-Ille , D. ( 2017 ), Syrian Women Refugees: Opportunity in the Gig Economy? ( London : ODI ), https://odi.org/en/publications/syrian-women-refugees-opportunity-in-the-gig-economy/ (accessed 1
, ODI ), www.odi.org/sites/odi.org.uk/files/resource-documents/12376.pdf (accessed 4 November 2022 ). Graham , M. and Anwar , M. A. ( 2019 ), ‘ The Global Gig Economy: Towards a Planetary Labour Market? ’, First Monday , 24 : 4 , doi: 10.5210/fm.v24i4
’s subsidy to a declining rate of profit. With fewer opportunities for men in the commodity chains that constitute the emerging global gig economy, so to speak, women are increasingly unlikely to withdraw from the labour force during their child-rearing years ( Dunaway, 2014 ). As the unequal distribution of chronic ill-health, under-nutrition and morbidity attest ( WHO, 2017 ), the social costs of this hyper-exploitation have been transferred with deleterious effects to a contained and largely urban precariat. Reflecting the parasitism of the
proliferating state and non-state armed groups hybridised with criminal gangs and smugglers. A highly precarious gig economy for militarised male labour can emerge to supply the workforce for these armed groups, and with much reduced domestic production, the war effort begins to depend on pillage, extractive taxation, shakedowns and external patronage ( Kaldor, 2012 : 94–6). Aid resources are often taxed, diverted or looted. As interests in the war
, A. , Samman , E. , Mansour-Ille , D. and Max , H. ( 2018 ), ‘ The Gig Economy in Complex Refugee Situations ’, Forced Migration Review , 58 : 47 – 9 . Iazzolino , G
with numerous NGOs, incurring debts with her landlord and local shops and selling homemade food to the neighbours, Um Nadia keeps the family afloat. Like Um Nadia, older mothers in our sample rely on a combination of aid and informal home-based work. While many, like Marwa, sell Syrian delicacies to their Jordanian neighbours, one woman with a background in education entered the gig economy: she now writes articles for a Syrian online forum. It is quite telling that this
Globalized urban precarity in Berlin and Abidjan examines urban youth’s practices of making do in digital economies, to understand how precarious working conditions reverberate in the coming of age in contemporary cities. Through a comparative analysis of the perspectives of young men working as airtime sellers in Abidjan and food delivery riders in Berlin, the book provides innovative analytical lenses to understand urban inequalities against the backdrop of current digital urban developments. Essentially, this ethnography challenges the easy conflation of instability with insecurity, and overcomes the centrality of wage labour in research on urban livelihood, by looking at a broader set of economic practices and relational mechanisms. The analysis shows how accruing symbolic capital, a feel for the game in contexts of ambiguity, and access to care are fundamental for explaining the unequal distribution of risks for socio-material insecurities in unstable work settings.
shows highly cyclical patterns of influence, with a waxing and waning of power – from dependency on agricultural work, the expansion of cottage industries, industrialisation and the rise of bureaucracy, to contemporary debates about union decline , globalisation, financialisation and the rise of the gig economy , as discussed later in this chapter. It is important to view these changes in a historical context, in order to evaluate and understand the nature of the changes taking place in terms of worker voice. There is an argument that, during the mid- to late