The Corporation and the Gig-Economy (ANTH30021)

In the age of automation, working means either getting endless, short terms, and precarious “gigs,” or becoming part of massive international corporations. This subject explores the relations and tensions between these two worlds, focusing on recent ethnographic work on the gig-economy and large companies (Coca-Cola, Ford, Philip Morris, Dow Chemical, Chevron-Texaco). Considering the cultural dynamics internal to multinational corporations as well as the social processes that generated a precarious economic landscape after the 1970s, the subject describes how these new spaces of work interact with, influence, and are shaped by community life, often in situations of significant power imbalance. With the help of guest speakers from the corporate sector and activists, we pay particular attention to the methodological and ethical challenges of carrying out research on, for, and within corporations or in the gig-economy. Case studies are drawn from India, PNG, Ecuador, Indonesia, the United States, Brazil, Eastern Europe, Italy, Japan, and South Africa.