Announcing a 2023 ASA pre-conference workshop on platform economies sponsored by the American Sociological Association's section on Organizations, Occupations, and Work (OOW) with support from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation

Precarity and Promise in Platform Economies: Infrastructures and Ecosystems of Entrepreneurship 

August 17, 2023
University of Pennsylvania

​SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Friday, March 10, 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time 

Digital platforms such as Uber, WeChat, TaskRabbit, WhatsApp, IndieGogo, Meta, and YouTube are changing the nature of work, transforming service and creative industries, and reshaping how people think about market exchange, competition, and collaboration. The rise of platforms is linked to the growth of precarious work, rising inequality, and the shifting of risk from organizations to individuals. At the same time, it is clear that some of those who operate within "platform capitalism" see themselves as entrepreneurs rather than exploited workers. When do platforms serve as robust infrastructures for entrepreneurship? When do they breed further precarity and exacerbate inequality? How do these two dynamics intertwine in different types of platforms (virtual and place-based) and industries? How do long-standing intersectional inequalities based on class, race, gender, or sexuality bear on platform work? And how can global and comparative perspectives generate new insights into the relationships between platforms and their institutional ecologies? We welcome any submissions relevant to these broad themes and questions.

The workshop's attendees will meet in person in Philadelphia on Thursday, August 17, 2023, the first day of the 2023 ASA annual meeting. We invite submissions of two sorts. First, those who are conducting research on relevant topics are invited to submit a précis (1- or 2-page single-spaced pages, approximately 500-1,000 words) for a paper to be presented and discussed during the workshop. Second, those who are just starting to do research in this area are invited to submit brief descriptions of their emerging projects, some of which will be selected for short "speed presentations" during the workshop. To submit your paper précis or speed-presentation description, please go to sites.google.com/bu.edu/oowpreconference23.
Small grants will be available to help defray travel costs for presenters who do not have other travel funds available.

To make the workshop as inclusive as possible, we strongly encourage submissions from graduate students, early-career faculty, and scholars of color, among others.

In general, we welcome submissions that discuss platform economies and the ways that these technological and institutional infrastructures are transforming how people start businesses, organize projects, and understand their labor and creativity. We are especially interested in interdisciplinary work that explores how platforms structure the possibilities for micro-entrepreneurship, flexible labor, worker and entrepreneurship training, and other internet-mediated economic activities that have expanded in recent years-posing individuals and communities with new opportunities for growth and ingenuity, yet also new risks of exploitation and abuse. This unique and interdisciplinary gathering of scholars will help participants place their work within the broader landscape of scholarship on platform economies, entrepreneurship, and labor inequality. 

We will review the submissions and contact the authors by early April. Papers will be grouped into sessions based on common themes and research interests. If selected, you will be expected to share a full paper by July 17, 2023. We expect presenters to attend the workshop in person, though we may allow for other options depending on the current Covid-19 conditions. Please visit sites.google.com/bu.edu/oowpreconference23 to learn more about the workshop, submit your paper précis or speed-presentation description, or contact the organizers with any questions. 

Organizing committee: Tim Bartley, Victor Tan Chen, Ashley Mears, Thao Nguyen, Benjamin Shestakofsky, Steven Vallas, Zoe Zhao.

Limited travel funding is available to help defray costs of attendance for workshop participants.