Globalized Urban Precarity in Berlin and Abidjan - Young Men and the Digital Economy (Hardcover)

Digital technologies promise efficiency and comfort, but the smoothness of platform services relies on the hidden social labour of those who keep the gig economy running. This book presents a comparative ethnography of young men making a living through digital technologies: selling mobile airtime in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, and app-based delivery riders in Berlin, Germany. These case studies explore the significance of symbolic capital in urban youth's social existence and organisation of livelihood in the digital economy, and the technological mechanisms producing a new form of urban precarity. Globalised urban precarity in Berlin and Abidjan puts forward an original comparative approach to develop a global urban sociology for the digital era. It provides an innovative analytical toolbox that decentres discussions of precarity from the standard of a normal employment contract. With its focus on symbolic capital, the ethnography shows the consequences of the proliferating gig economy for status struggles among urban youth, and carefully embeds the densification of software and services into the socio-material relations on which these new urban infrastructures are built. -- .

General

Imprint:	Manchester University Press
Country of origin:	United Kingdom
Release date:	February 2023
First published:	2023
Authors:	Hannah Schilling
Dimensions:	216 x 138mm (L x W)
Format:	Hardcover
Pages:	232
ISBN-13:	978-1-5261-6209-0
Categories:	Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social institutions > General Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social groups & communities > Urban communities Books > Business & Economics > Economics > Labour economics > Employment & unemployment Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Anthropology > Social & cultural anthropology > General Promotions
LSN:	1-5261-6209-1
Barcode:	9781526162090

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