Positioning Rural Geography into Platform Economies: Why We Need to Ask New Questions When Researching the Rural Platform Economy

Abstract

AbstractA rapidly growing body of work explores platform-mediated economy and work under the umbrella term ‘Platform Urbanism’. This focus and academic discourse risk keeping digital spaces and practices in the rural context in the shadow or subordinated to urban-based understandings. Concurrently, digital studies on the rural have for long focused on technocratic approaches to improving information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and connectivity. While recently the potentials of digitalization in transforming agriculture, small businesses, health care, and transportation in rural areas are receiving significant attention, these debates remain surprisingly disconnected from vibrant discussions of the platform economy. Thus, the remaking of rural geographies through the platform economy, and vice versa, remains under-examined. This chapter addresses the importance of spatiality and geography in considering the platform economy with examples of rural small business and agriculture. It illustrates why the nuances and complexity of rural spaces need to become part of understanding the dynamics of the platform economy. Centring rural as important and spatially significant not only lifts the complexity of rural platform processes but also creates opportunities for new questions and patterns. Rural geographical perspectives highlight relational and interlocking spaces found in the rural platform economy and offer the potential for a deeper understanding of social-technical-spatial relations.