Platforms without Borders

Investigators

Principal Investigator: James Muldoon
Co-Investigator: Ping Sun
Co-Investigator: Gessuir Pigatto

ESRC New Investigator Grant: ES/W011638/1 (2023-2026)

‘Platforms without Borders’ is a cross-national ethnographic study by a team of researchers based in the United Kingdom, China and Brazil which aims to determine how on-demand labour platforms distribute new opportunities and vulnerabilities for migrant workers in the platform economy. It moves beyond the narrow focus of platform labour studies on a select few cities in the Global North by considering the different circumstances facing migrant workers in three distinct cities and national contexts based on fieldwork in London, Beijing and Sao Paulo with food delivery riders. The international focus provides an opportunity to examine how global platform companies operate differently in distinct regulatory environments, which will deepen our understanding of the platform economy.

The project employs novel ethnographic research methods developed from Paulo Freire’s notion of ‘popular education’ to engage with migrant workers through which workers critically reflect on their own experience of work in dialogue with critical social analysis. The methodology emphasises the importance of workers as active agents with their own distinct understanding of the labour process and the capacity to develop novel solutions to improve their working conditions. By starting from the experience of workers, the project will determine how intersecting regimes of power related to gender, race, class, education and immigration status affect migrant workers’ experience with platform labour. It will examine how broader systems of immigration, welfare and labour market policies operate in different national contexts and how this affects the experience of workers. The research will engage workers with the aim of generating novel policy solutions to the emerging problems of the digital economy.

For early career researchers interested in applying for UKRI funding, please find here my case for support and summary of my successful application for an ESRC New Investigator grant. I hope this is helpful for other applicants.

The Climate Crisis and Democratic Reform

Investigators

Principal Investigator: James Muldoon
Co-Investigator: Clare Saunders

AHRC Networking Grant: AH/Y00132X/1 (2024-2026)

The ongoing threat of the climate crisis poses significant challenges to democratic forms of governance. Responding to the need for immediate action would require swift policy adaptation from governments on a regional, national and international scale. However, democratic governments across the globe have struggled to respond with adequate policies that would prevent global warming above 1.5 degrees celsius as recommended by the IPCC. Scholars have identified several interconnected processes that have hitherto prevented strong action: the influence of fossil fuel corporations on the policy-making process, the short-term orientation of electoral politics, the polarised nature of public debate, the role of representative institutions and the ways in which expert and scientific evidence are used to justify decision-making. Our response to these issues requires further collaboration across disciplinary boundaries to grasp the full implications of the nature of the challenge in the field of democratic governance.

The Climate Crisis and Democratic Reform Network will establish an international group of academic and non-academic experts to pursue new lines of inquiry into how climate change is impacting democratic governance and which reforms are necessary to adequately respond to this emerging challenge. This involves interdisciplinary collaboration across political philosophy, law, democratic theory, environmental politics and energy policy. The aim of the network is to produce a theoretically rigorous understanding of democracy in an age of climate crisis and to examine institutional designs that could reform how democracy operates. The network will develop novel justifications for the value of democracy in light of the climate emergency to strengthen commitments to democratic forms of government when faced with these new challenges. The network has the further goal of building relationships between academics and civil society groups. It will provide opportunities for new connections to be formed between different communities of scholars and practitioners that will enable knowledge exchange to take place on the issues of climate change and democratic reform.