The (Post-)Politics of Sharing Economies: A Study from The Global South

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Through the case study of the conflict surrounding Uber's arrival in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in mid-2016, the aim of my work under this Fellowship is to examine how new technologies, in particular the so-called sharing economies, are reshaping how we understand some of the basic categories of social life, from the ideas of "competition" and "transparency" to what "progress" and "legitimacy" actually mean. Researchers and the general public alike often either celebrate sharing economies and their unbridled potential for economic opportunity, or decry the ever-increasing precarisation of work conditions and professions under the guise of innovation. Beyond this debate, the aim of my work is to show how these technologies are actually affecting how our economies, political institutions and legal systems make sense of contemporary life. I build on twelve months of continuous fieldwork spanning the months before, during and after the conflict surrounding Uber's arrival; interviews with policymakers, union leaders, taxi drivers and their passengers and Uber drivers and their users; and the legal documents of the case against Uber as it played out in local courts. I aim to show how the behaviour, mechanisms and technical properties of these technologies bring about new understandings of what counts as political - that is, what is at stake and can be disagreed upon - and what people perceive to lie beyond the sphere of debate. As they encode prices, incentives and what we understand as market forces, my claim is that these technologies are reframing what we understand as natural, technical and objective and therefore what we choose to scrutinise and how. The case in Buenos Aires shows that a consequence of this reframing is a profound change in how citizens understand the role of the state and policy makers when it comes to engaging with these technologies and with the companies that provide them. This impact is all the more serious in societies across the Global South: these countries are usually receivers of these technologies, and in societies haunted by bureaucratic indolence, verified or suspected corruption and the knowledge of being in the periphery of modernity, technological innovations are much more likely to displace the state and policy makers when it comes to deciding how to govern our lives.During this year I also aim to put my findings with respect to metropolitan societies of the Global South in dialogue with current debates in Manchester and the UK at large regarding the role of these technologies in British life. In light of Uber's recent legal travails in London and amid growing concern with how companies like Deliveroo and Airbnb reshape services and the use of space in British cities, can we still think of the economic relations these technologies bring about as "markets", and can those who participate in them actually compete, and if so, how? Do we have the legal and political tools to understand their pricing, their labour practices and the ways in which they organise and redefine work, transportation and leisure? Are their ratings and other trust mechanisms built into them effective, transparent or reliable when it comes to understanding quality or efficacy, and if so, to whom? Who in society is better off because of them and who is not? Should they be regulated, and if so, why, how and at what scale?Crucially, the overall aim of my research is to build an interdisciplinary research agenda built on citizen's use, understandings and expectations of these technologies for policymakers, researchers and citizens alike to reflect on the profound changes such technologies are bringing to our lives.