Homeless food delivery riders and their transportal home in Shanghai's lockdown

Abstract

This article draws on the concept of “transportal home” to examine the intersection of mobile media, mobility, and place-making among homeless food delivery workers in the Shanghai lockdown. Shanghai's lockdown lasted from February 28 to May 31, 2022, and was one of the strictest in China, resulting in thousands of food delivery riders being locked out of their homes, treated as potential carriers of the virus, and forced to sleep on the streets until the lockdown was lifted. The article uses qualitative research methods to explore the COVID-related homelessness of food delivery riders during the lockdown, focusing on their media practices and highlighting their experiences and agency in using mobile media to negotiate their lives amid the (im)mobile mobility they faced. It argues that mobile phones, as a transportal home, can offer a technological imaginary of home out of “homelessness”; however, they also serve as a reminder of the constraints of such an imaginary, as these (temporarily) homeless food delivery riders continue to be subject to platform exploitation and pandemic surveillance.