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

通过对Uber于2016年年中进入阿根廷布宜诺斯艾利斯的冲突进行案例研究，我在该奖学金下的工作目的是研究新技术，特别是所谓的共享经济，如何重塑我们对社会生活的一些基本类别的理解，从“竞争”和“透明度”的概念到“进步”和“合法性”的实际含义。研究人员和普通公众通常要么为共享经济及其无限的经济机会潜力欢呼，要么谴责在创新的幌子下，工作条件和职业日益不稳定。除了这些争论之外，我的工作的目的是展示这些技术是如何影响我们的经济、政治制度和法律体系如何理解当代生活的。我的研究基于长达12个月的持续实地考察，涵盖了围绕Uber到来的冲突前后的几个月；对政策制定者、工会领导人、出租车司机及其乘客、优步司机及其用户的采访；以及在当地法院审理的针对优步的案件的法律文件。我的目标是展示这些技术的行为、机制和技术特性如何带来对什么是政治的新理解——也就是说，什么是利害攸关的、可以存在分歧的——以及人们认为什么是超出辩论范围的。当它们编码价格、激励和我们所理解的市场力量时，我的观点是，这些技术正在重塑我们对自然、技术和客观的理解，从而重塑我们选择审查的内容和方式。布宜诺斯艾利斯的案例表明，这种重构的一个结果是，在涉及使用这些技术和提供这些技术的公司时，公民对国家和政策制定者角色的理解发生了深刻变化。这种影响在全球南方的社会中更为严重：这些国家通常是这些技术的接受者，在官僚懒惰、被证实或怀疑腐败以及处于现代性边缘的知识困扰的社会中，在决定如何管理我们的生活时，技术创新更有可能取代国家和政策制定者。在这一年里，我还打算把我关于全球南方都市社会的发现与曼彻斯特和整个英国目前关于这些技术在英国生活中的作用的辩论进行对话。鉴于优步（Uber）最近在伦敦遭遇的法律纠纷，以及人们对Deliveroo和Airbnb等公司如何重塑英国城市的服务和空间使用的担忧日益加剧，我们还能把这些技术带来的经济关系视为“市场”吗？参与其中的人是否真的在竞争？如果是，又该如何竞争？我们是否有法律和政治工具来理解他们的定价、劳动实践以及他们组织和重新定义工作、交通和休闲的方式？当涉及到对质量或功效的理解时，他们的评级和其他信任机制是否有效、透明或可靠？如果是，对谁？社会上谁因为他们而过得更好，谁没有？它们应该受到监管吗？如果应该，原因何在？如何监管？监管的规模有多大？至关重要的是，我的研究的总体目标是建立一个跨学科的研究议程，建立在公民对这些技术的使用、理解和期望的基础上，让政策制定者、研究人员和公民都能反思这些技术给我们的生活带来的深刻变化。

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.