Lindsey D. Cameron | Scalable Subjugation: How Workers Reconstitute Platforms Globally

AlgoWork Roundtable

24.09.2025 15:00-16:00

Lindsey D. Cameron is an assistant professor of management at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and a faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard and holds an appointment in the sociology department. As a scholar of the future of work, her research focuses on how algorithmic management and artificial intelligence is changing the modern workplace, with an emphasis on the gig economy.

The burgeoning of the platform economy has sparked a growing interest in the global phenomenon of platform work. Yet, few studies have examined how platform work changes in a global context, implicitly assuming that digital scalability of algorithmic code translates to geographic scalability. Drawing on a three-year qualitative study of platform workers (ride-hailing workers), in three informal economies in the Global South (Brazil, Ghana, and Nigeria), I describe how workers reconstitute platform systems through enlisting new actors to compensate for gaps in the physical and digital infrastructures. By employing highly localized coordination mechanisms — of delegation, kinship, and troubleshooting —workers foster system-wide reliability, enabling the geographic scalability of platforms. However, the introduction of new actors adds a new managerial layer, further eroding the autonomy and flexibility promised to gig workers. I conclude with implications for how to build a global high-road platform company.

Event information

Date: 24.09.2025

Time: 15:00 – 16:00 (GMT+1)

The event will take place via Zoom.

AlgoWork Roundtable