‘You can’t pick up a phone and talk to someone’: How algorithms function as biopower in the gig economy

This paper asks why there is so little collective dissent and mobilised resistance in the gig economy, especially when labour-based digital platforms are used. We suggest part of answer lies with ‘management by algorithm’. Drawing on an empirical study Uber drivers Australia, we found that algorithms function as a form biopower, concept introduced Michel Foucault. As ‘life processes’ put to work, fragmentation, isolation resignation ensue. explore implications our findings have for appreciating how biopower operates within platform capitalism beyond.