Lecture | Lunch Research Seminar
Women, gig work, & Techno-Fixes in the Gulf Platform Economy
- Date
- Thursday 8 May 2025
- Time
- Address
-
Lipsius
Cleveringaplaats 1
2311 BD Leiden - Room
- 2.02
Registration
All are welcome, however please register in advance at l-peg@hum.leidenuniv.nl to receive a copy of the paper and lunch.
Abstract
Digital platforms mediating work between customers and service providers have expanded exponentially in the past decade, driving a growing research agenda on the impact of platform capitalism, AI and the gig economy on labour around the world. This paper is interested in understanding the platform economy at the intersection of gender with the political economy of labour. The discussion at the beginning of the seminar will focus on an article examining the Omani case of a new women’s taxi service (OFemale) through the digital platform OTaxi, asking how ride-hailing platforms are impacting women’s employment futures. The concluding part of the seminar will focus on other forms of gendered gig work opportunities and how this is changing wider Asian labour and migration regimes. Using rapid ethnography, elite interviews and a survey, the case examines both the launch and expansion of the business alongside the experiences of Omani women as taxi drivers. The article excavates three gendered discourses of freedom, protection and job creation around platform labour and female labour market participation in the region. It argues that digital platforms such as OTaxi offer techno-fixes to fill gaps in the market and respond to the need to generate job opportunities for female citizens in the country. At the same time, women make use of these opportunities and interpret their experience in diverse ways that problematise the neo-liberal promises of innovative technologies, job flexibility and autonomy embodied in platform capitalism.