[Petit Fours #390] On technology-mediated marketplaces, algorithmic management of work and health, and participation
Hi, everyone! Here’s what I’ve got for you today:
#1 There are lots of papers worth reading in the CHI Proceedings, but one I particularly want to highlight is this piece by Pedro Ferreira: Examining the "Local" in ICT4D: A Postcolonial Perspective on Participation. “ICT4D has increasingly adopted participation and community involvement to address power imbalances, namely through the figure of the "local". However, this reliance makes assumptions about the nature of the "local" while limiting scrutiny of research approaches. Through a Postcolonial Critical Discourse Analysis, this paper argues that 1) communities are often essentialized in agency-depriving ways, 2) researchers claim substantial discretionary power in representing communities, and 3) participatory approaches are framed as inherently beneficial, obscuring compromises. The analysis suggests participation serves to maintain the status quo. Going forward, ICT4D research should ground claims in evidence, demonstrate community benefits, acknowledge complexities transparently, and question premises that empirical gaps alone justify research. Rather than participation as a panacea, a reflexive ICT4D should scrutinize representational practices and notions of empowerment that may perpetuate inequities.“
#2 Another shout-out goes to Perceptions of Fairness in Technology-Mediated Marketplaces, co-authored by Andrew Chong, Ji Su Yoo, and Coye Cheshire. “Consumers increasingly interact with workers through technology-mediated marketplaces (TMMs)—environments where third-party companies manage interactions, control information, and constrain behavioral choices. We argue that opacity in how TMMs operate can make it difficult for consumers to judge what is fair when interacting with other economic actors. To better understand how consumers perceive and act on fairness in TMMs, we examine the practice of tipping—a consumer behavior in the United States that is strongly associated with assessments of fairness. Through interviews with consumers, we find three distinct ways that consumers discuss fairness in tipping in third-party food delivery: fairness as supporting a living wage, fairness as reciprocity, and fairness in distribution of payments. We discuss how TMMs codify economic interactions and change consumers’ social meaning of a tip, how consumers perceive an obligation to tip drivers differently in TMMs, and how TMMs alter information consumers use to determine accountability.“
#3 Closer to home, Carin Håkansta and her team at Karolinska Institutet are organizing an Interdisciplinary Policy Conference: Algorithmic Management of Work and Health on November 12. You can already register your interest if you’d like to get updates and might like to join!
#4 From another neighboring university, Uppsala, here’s a nice interview with Katie Winkle who specializes in social robotics: Can social robots help breaking norms and widening stereotypes?
-A