Transitional labor

【Editor's Recommendation】
When people rethink the meaning of work, delivery riders trapped in the system become a social mirror and a metaphor of the times, and holistic social care will be formed.
【Content Introduction】
This book is an anthropological ethnography of platform labor, delving into the labor forms and social significance of food delivery riders within the context of China's platform economy. Through seven years of fieldwork in 19 cities, the author, with a passionate activism, documents the riders' real state of suspended animation between formal and informal labor, focusing on the platform's crucial shift from controlling the workers themselves to meticulously controlling the labor process. He proposes the powerful concept of "transitional labor," reflecting workers' concerns about their future career development. The book delves into the impact of algorithmic technology on riders' labor, focusing specifically on the dual challenges faced by female riders navigating family and work, providing rich field data and new research perspectives.
Today, platformization is shaping entirely new social relations. Digital platforms for food delivery, housekeeping, logistics, and ride-hailing have facilitated daily life, but they have also spawned a vast workforce of gig workers who rely on these platforms. While documenting and reflecting on these gig workers, this book celebrates the experience and courage of individuals shaping their lives amidst uncertainty, and envisions a more benign and virtuous algorithm.
【Expert Recommendation】
New technologies are transforming social relations, relationships, and the very nature of labor, and Dr. Sun Ping has keenly grasped the emerging challenges and challenges. Her book, "Transitional Labor: Delivery Riders in the Platform Economy," uses in-depth fieldwork and ethnographic research to reveal the labor forms and social significance of delivery riders within the context of China's rapidly developing platform economy. From 2017 to 2024, the author conducted extensive observation and research on delivery riders, meticulously documenting their work and daily lives through interviews, questionnaires, and accompanying delivery drivers.
Drawing on extensive field research data, this book depicts the mobility and uncertainty of the food delivery rider profession, showcasing their fleeting, migratory lives in the city. The author notes that while food delivery riders emerged amidst China's urbanization and digitalization, this occupation is characterized by temporary and transitional nature. Many riders do not intend to work in this capacity long-term, viewing it as a transitional means of livelihood. By analyzing the labor practices of food delivery riders, the author proposes the concept of "transitional labor," emphasizing that their work is neither formal employment in the traditional sense nor simple gig labor, but rather a state suspended between formal and informal labor. This transitional nature not only reflects the individual riders' confusion and uncertainty about their future career development but also reveals a shift in the platform economy's approach to controlling workers—from control over the workers themselves to more refined control over the labor process.
The book also explores the complex interactions between food delivery riders and the platform economy, including the impact of algorithmic technology on rider labor and the role of platform organizations in driving rider mobility. Through in-depth research, the author demonstrates the struggles and efforts of food delivery riders in the face of high-intensity, high-pressure work, revealing the labor dilemmas and living conditions of this group in the digital age.
"Transitional Labor: Food Delivery Riders in the Platform Economy" is not only a vivid portrayal of food delivery riders but also a profound reflection on the changing forms of labor during China's current socioeconomic transformation. It is an invaluable reference for scholars and practitioners studying platform society, the platform economy, gig labor, and modern labor relations and new communication relationships.
——Chen Changfeng, professor at the School of Journalism and Communication of Tsinghua University and director of the Smart Media Center. "Transitional Labor" is a monograph that takes food delivery riders as the research subject.
Author Dr. Sun Ping spent seven years collecting data using a variety of methods, including interviews and questionnaires. The research covered major cities and towns across China, from north to south. The resulting data is unprecedented in its richness, depth, and diversity.
Sun Ping primarily employs an ethnographic approach to present her findings and analysis. While writing about the life stories of food delivery riders, she engages in dialogue with relevant social theories from China and abroad, and also focuses on refining new theoretical concepts. The book is filled with interplay between vivid data and insightful analysis.
Sun Ping's analysis is historical, contextual, interdisciplinary, and cross-social, allowing her to see both the trees and the forest. She draws upon the domestic context, encompassing economic and industrial transformation, the rise of platform capital, the development of connective network technologies, and urbanization, to explore the conditions, mechanisms, and processes that led to the emergence of food delivery riders. She offers a thorough and detailed analysis of the organizational forms, working methods, and labor culture of the platform economy—particularly the transitional nature of food delivery rider labor—as well as the role of algorithms.
"Transitional Labor" is a monograph written with great effort and care. It is expected to become a classic work in contemporary labor research and is worthy of sincere recommendation to everyone.
—Chen Taowen, Emeritus Professor of the School of Journalism and Communication, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Those young lives, undeterred by wind and rain, have become the human conveyor belts of the city. The stark contrast between cutting-edge digital technology and low-end labor has become a daily fixture of our lives, often overlooked. Young Dr. Sun Ping (and her research team) spent over seven years traveling across 19 cities and interviewing 200 riders—a feat truly remarkable in contemporary Chinese and even global academia. This book captures this activism: how do technology, markets, institutions, and human nature conspire to create new inequalities in the face of advanced technology? Through the lives and interviews of these riders, social issues such as urban-rural divides, class structure, and gender equality are meticulously analyzed.
Social anthropologist Xiang Biao has recently referred to the "hovering hummingbird" to describe a state of life that is constantly in motion. Sun Ping's concept of "transitional labor" provides a more focused and in-depth conceptual expansion of "precarious labor." This concept of "transitional labor" makes the social issues surrounding food delivery particularly acute: the temporary nature of workers' aspirations and their dependence on platforms; the contrast between the promise of "transition" and its transformation into a "permanent and normal existence"... We cannot hope that the capital, technology, and production that create transitional labor will ensure a smooth transition to the other side of life. So, how can we escape the shackles of transitional labor? We need to find the answers in this book.
Ding Wei, Professor of the School of Communication at Shenzhen University, "This book captures a powerful perspective on the transformation of platform society: the idea that permanent transitional labor is becoming a defining characteristic of our era. This is an inspiring work, the author's sustained and admirable dedication to this endeavor. This collection of riders' fascinating stories, life experiences, and street smarts is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding China's platform economy and gig labor."
This is a captivating report on the sociology of labor. Drawing on years of fieldwork, the author weaves together vivid original interviews with incisive theoretical analysis, telling the unfinished story of food delivery riders in the platform economy. The author's understanding and respect for workers permeates the pages, unleashing a warm and powerful force in an era where old structures and new technologies clash.
The book's introduction, which also serves as its conclusion, deserves rereading and reflection. The concept of "transitional labor" is the author's significant theoretical contribution, foreshadowing and naming the emerging trend of modern labor. Digital technology is further fragmenting instrumental rather than value-based labor, even becoming a permanent dilemma. The meaning of life and the connection to social communities are now deeply questioned. The author's revelations about the present and foreseeable future present a profound challenge.
—Liu Beicheng, Professor of History at Tsinghua University For the delivery riders described by Sun Ping, they engage in a form of transitional or temporary labor; but for all workers, the decentralized yet incredibly sophisticated digital and platform-based control technologies inherent in transitional labor are becoming the norm, permeating every industry. Therefore, by caring about their status, the literature is caring about ourselves.
——Liu Hailong, Professor at the School of Journalism, Renmin University of China "Transitional labor" focuses on the phenomenon of "temporary", but because it breaks through the single description of the suffering of riders and transcends the critical accusatory discourse, it shows the rich economic, social and cultural world of thousands of individual lives, thus possessing "long-term" vitality. In more than seven years of field research, the author interviewed not only riders, but also stores, platforms, consumers, and so on. The author has also grown at a visible speed from a young man who was green when I first met him to a living example of "the presence of gods on the scene". Only people with rich experience and empathy can make such "level-headed" writing. This book is therefore suitable for everyone who is trying to find meaning beyond structural pressure and system difficulties.
—Lv Peng, Director of the Digital China Research Center at the University of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Sun Ping's book, based on long-term, in-depth field research, focuses on the work and life experiences of food delivery drivers. Incorporating analysis of macroeconomic factors such as data technology, platform management methods, urbanization, and population mobility, it reveals how the platform economy effectively organizes high-intensity individual labor while preventing workers from organizing themselves. This book provides an example of how anthropological and ethnographic methods can be used to engage with contemporary economic and social change.
--Xiang Biao, Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford and Director of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Germany. Sun Ping, with her long-term theoretical accumulation and field experience, focuses on food delivery riders under the platform economy and systematically explains the important academic concept of "transitional labor". She not only shows the labor of food delivery riders, but also depicts their lives and lives, constituting an analysis of the current "Digital China" with great theoretical significance and practical value, which is worthy of strong recommendation.
—Zhou Baohua, Professor and Vice Dean of the School of Journalism at Fudan University

2024-07-01

华东师范大学出版社

Mint Experiment

388

9787576047110