Ride-hailing Platforms, Algorithmic Management, and Everyday Resistances: A Case Study of Drivers in Lagos, Nigeria.

Abstract

The global financial crisis of 2007 and 2008 led to high unemployment rates, underemployment, and job uncertainty. In the same period, the Uber ride-hailing platform emerged to solve the inefficiencies in the taxi industry in the US. It employed workers based on an independent contractor model characterised by flexibility and labour autonomy. This gave rise to the platformisation or uberisation of labour, whereby traditional labour sectors proliferated the gig or platform economy to reduce the cost for organisations. These, however, have become increasingly precarious by preventing workers from social protection benefits and reducing their bargaining power in challenging unfairness. Since Global North (GN) cities were early adopters and emerging grounds for ride-hailing platforms, scholarship on their emergence and impacts in Global South (GS) cities is less common. Therefore, this thesis first aims to identify how ride-hailing platforms such as Uber emerge and proliferate gig work in GS cities, using Lagos, Nigeria, as a core example. It examines the mode of managing drivers, controlled by algorithms characterised by opacity, information asymmetries, and biases which are burdens of labour. Using the algorithmic management concept and James Scott's everyday resistances, this thesis shows how algorithms impact the labour process and have facilitated public and hidden resistances from drivers. The thesis is based on an innovative and robust qualitative methodology comprising semi-structured interviews (SSI), focus group discussions (FGD), mobile participant and online observations of platform drivers. Other primary data sources include driver forums, attending driver training sessions and listening to transport radio programmes. The findings reveal that the algorithmic burdens are underlying factors proliferating impacts in Lagos and further facilitating drivers’ resistance practices. Compared to GN cites, Lagos's realities vary because pre-existing contextual characteristics go beyond code and further exacerbate burdensome labour processes. This thesis theoretically and empirically contributes to algorithmic management as a concept based on the contextual realities that differ between GN and South cities. Further, it contributes to the creative accounts of platform research, particularly in GS cities. Finally, this thesis contributes to rethinking the everyday resistance concept, particularly concerning how the public and hidden resistances change with time. More so, how the weapons of the weak are as much a weapon of the dominant in facilitating hidden counter resistances in Lagos.

Date of Award	31 Dec 2022
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The University of Manchester
Supervisor	Martin Dodge (Supervisor) & James Evans (Supervisor)