Shibata, S. orcid.org/0000-0002-5944-9721 (2019) Paradoxical autonomy in Japan’s platform economy. Science, Technology and Society, 24 (2). pp. 271-287. ISSN 0971-7218
Abstract
Crowdsourcing firms, their client firms and the government in Japan have advocated that crowd work provides opportunities for workers to enjoy autonomous working practices, enabling subpopulations such as women and the elderly who would otherwise be excluded from the labour market to find employment. This is far from the case. Instead, crowdsourcing is perhaps better considered a means, enabled by technological advances, by which to flexibilise the labour market. We have been witnessing a shift in the forms of domination and control imposed on labour from a direct, physical and onsite type of control to an indirect mechanism of domination that has rendered workers less visible while suppressing wages. This further implies that the paradoxical autonomy of crowd work is embedded in contemporary antagonism in Japanese employment relations.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2019 The Author. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). |
Keywords: | Platform; digital work; crowd work; Japan |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > School of East Asian Studies (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 09 Sep 2021 07:42 |
Last Modified: | 09 Sep 2021 10:29 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | SAGE Publications |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1177/0971721819841995 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:177975 |