Storytelling as connectivity: expanding the digital geographies of the gig economy

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Bibliographic Details
Title: Storytelling as connectivity: expanding the digital geographies of the gig economy
Authors: Webster, Natasha A., 1978
Source: Social & Cultural Geography. 26(1):1-19
Subject Terms: Connective digital practices, gig economy, work, masculinities, migration, storytelling, Social and Economic Geography, Kulturgeografi
Description: The last decade has seen unprecedented changes in working forms, not the least through technological innovation while leisure time is equally reshaped by platforms. Although relatively new, the gig economy – temporary work mediated through platforms – is increasingly an important form of employment globally and consequently, the gig economy is represented in popular culture. Popular culture is part of social-technical-spatial relations making these important spaces in digital geographies. However, digital content, for example from streaming programs, is often not considered in labour geography studies. By conducting ethnographic content analysis and doodling ‘think-with’ work on Beforeigners, a piece of speculative fiction from Norway, I explore how storytelling conjoins parallel digital practices. I show storytelling as a kind of softening of ground narrating technological-spatial relations and demonstrates how, from this Nordic example, storytelling is part of the continuative geographical ordering of work forms in digital spaces and places. Exploring other sites of digital spaces highlights the ways digital geography is multi-layered, inter-relational and gradient, and demonstrates the need to go beyond established sites of inquiry to understand the gig economy as a social-technological-spatial relation.
File Description: electronic
Access URL: https://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:oru:diva-114540
https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2024.2367417
Database: SwePub
Description
Abstract:The last decade has seen unprecedented changes in working forms, not the least through technological innovation while leisure time is equally reshaped by platforms. Although relatively new, the gig economy – temporary work mediated through platforms – is increasingly an important form of employment globally and consequently, the gig economy is represented in popular culture. Popular culture is part of social-technical-spatial relations making these important spaces in digital geographies. However, digital content, for example from streaming programs, is often not considered in labour geography studies. By conducting ethnographic content analysis and doodling ‘think-with’ work on Beforeigners, a piece of speculative fiction from Norway, I explore how storytelling conjoins parallel digital practices. I show storytelling as a kind of softening of ground narrating technological-spatial relations and demonstrates how, from this Nordic example, storytelling is part of the continuative geographical ordering of work forms in digital spaces and places. Exploring other sites of digital spaces highlights the ways digital geography is multi-layered, inter-relational and gradient, and demonstrates the need to go beyond established sites of inquiry to understand the gig economy as a social-technological-spatial relation.
ISSN:14649365
DOI:10.1080/14649365.2024.2367417