On algorithmic time and daily contingencies in the gig economy: The lived work of food delivery service

Abstract

Abstract This study takes a praxiological perspective (drawing on ethnomethodology, conversation analysis and membership categorization analysis) to examine the working practices of food delivery service workers in China. The analysis explicates how delivery drivers deal with daily algorithm-generated information and contingencies through the production and mobilization of tacitly assumed conventions to maintain their work-flow. Three intertwined phenomena are identified: (1) coordinating pick up and deliveries involves a high degree of practical interactional work; (2) the job is practice oriented around routine contingencies of time, travel, and waiting, and (3), the job is collaborative and organized through a moral order that involves the mobilization of resources which operate alongside, but separate from the technology. The study shows how a detailed analysis of the lived work of food delivery drivers provides a powerful tool to highlight and examine what is often hidden (and lost) in studies of the gig economy.