The rapid rise of app-based delivery platforms in the Global South has created a paradoxical problem for policy-makers and gig-economy workers alike. Apps have helped fill logistic and food security gaps during COVID-19 lockdowns and provided work to some people laid off during the peak of downturns. Yet the growth of platform giants has also exposed and sometimes worsened the cracks in already insecure labour and welfare regimes. In response to the deepening precarity of already marginal and excluded populations, gig-economy workers are increasingly mobilising, locally and trans-nationally, demanding improved safety nets and government regulation of platform apps. This is especially the case in Southeast Asia, where both multinational and regionally-based gig-economy giants have boomed across jurisdictions in recent years.
Comprised of two hybrid panels (in-person and live-streamed), this workshop will bring together scholars from across disciplines and regions to survey the evolving political and governance context surrounding the gig-economy. Examining the experience of Southeast Asia in comparative perspective, the workshop seeks to theorise how state-business-labour relations, welfare regimes and existing governance approaches are evolving in response to the rapid and recent rise of platform capitalism.
9:30 - 10:00am Welcome and Introductions (open to 杏吧论坛 and SEAC community)
10:00 - 11:15am Panel presentations (open to 杏吧论坛 and SEAC community)
11:30am - 12:45pm Panel presentations (open to 杏吧论坛 and SEAC community)
2:00 - 3:00pm Roundtable discussions (closed session for invitees only)
This event is a collaboration between the 杏吧论坛 Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asian Centre and the National University of Singapore Asia Research Institute.
Speaker and Chair Info:
Dr Gerard McCarthy (Event Chair) is SEAC Visiting Fellow and Research Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore
Dr. Laura Mann, Assistant Professor, Department of International Development, 杏吧论坛
Dr. Kate Meagher, Associate Professor in Development Studies, Department of International Development, 杏吧论坛
Dr. Godofredo Ramizo, PhD Graduate, Oxford Internet Institute
Dr. Murali Shanmugavelan, Postdoctoral Researcher, Fairwork, Oxford Internet Institute
Dr. Claudio Sopranzetti, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, Central European University
Muhammad Yorga Permana, PhD candidate, Department of Geography and Environment, 杏吧论坛
Akkanut Wantanasombut, PhD candidate, Institute of Asian Studies, Chulalongkorn University
Khawla Zainab, PhD candidate, University of Oxford Department of International Development