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Open access Aug 2026

Digital Precarity and the Transformation of Labor Exploitation in Latin America: Rethinking Modern Slavery in Platform Economies

This article examines the transformation of labor exploitation in Latin America within the context of digital platform economies. Moving beyond traditional conceptions of modern slavery centered on physical coercion, the study introduces the concept of digital precarity to capture emerging forms of structurally mediated exploitation. Drawing on a mixed methodological approach that combines legal analysis, institutional reports, and critical socio-economic theory, the paper identifies a growing misalignment between existing labor regulations and contemporary mechanisms of control, including algorithmic management and data-driven dependency. The findings demonstrate that exploitation increasingly operates through indirect coercion, economic vulnerability, and fragmented employment relations rather than overt force. This shift challenges the adequacy of international legal frameworks grounded in industrial labor paradigms. The article proposes the Digital Precarity Matrix as an analytical tool to assess varying degrees of labor exploitation across physical, economic, and digital dimensions. By focusing on Latin America as a region marked by informality and rapid digitalization, this research contributes to ongoing debates on labor transformation, human rights, and platform governance, offering policy-relevant insights for adapting labor protections to the digital age.

Miguel Esbrí Montoliú, Agustín Torres-Rodríguez · 0 citations
Review Open access Aug 2026

Digital taylorism and the future of employment relations in India

This study examines the gig economy as a site of contested employment relations, interrogating how algorithmic governance reshapes the social contract between workers and platforms. Drawing on a scoping review of 145 studies, this paper develops a conceptual framework integrating precarious work theory, power dynamics, and employment relations constructs—including worker voice, collective agency, and dispute resolution—to analyse the structural conditions of platform-mediated labour in India. The analysis reveals that algorithmic management operates as a form of digital Taylorism, systematically eroding worker autonomy and bargaining power while reconfiguring the boundaries of the employment relationship. India’s gig workforce, projected to reach 23.5 million by 2029–30, represents a critical case where informality, rapid digitalisation, and weak institutional frameworks converge. The paper argues that addressing these conditions requires a ‘new social contract’ that reconceptualises obligations between platforms, workers, and the state, moving beyond descriptive cataloguing toward theoretically grounded employment relations analysis. Implications are drawn for voice mechanisms, collective bargaining models, and regulatory reform in the Indian context.

Sazzad Parwez · 0 citations
Aug 2026

An Introduction to Platform Economy in India

The authors examine the pivotal roles of individuals and collectives, alongside their embedded socio-economic and technical arrangements, to show the multifaceted dimensions of the rapid proliferation of platforms, burgeoning platform memberships, and the ensuing multidimensional social exchanges in India.

Jillet Sarah Sam, Shriram Venkatraman, Rajorshi Ray · 0 citations
Open access Aug 2026

Alternative futures of platform power in Iran’s digital economy: a causal layered analysis approach

Platform power in transactional superplatforms has increasingly shaped market access, labor conditions, and regulatory agendas in Iran, yet much existing scholarship remains present-focused and insufficiently attentive to the discursive and cultural foundations through which platform dominance is normalized and future trajectories are configured. This study examines the accumulation of platform power in Iranian transactional superplatforms as a multi-layered, future-shaping phenomenon. Drawing on an interpretive qualitative design, the study analyzes data from 18 semi-structured expert interviews and two focus group discussions with platform executives, policymakers/regulators, and academic experts. Following full transcription, thematic analysis produced approximately 350 initial codes, which were refined into around 40 core themes. These were subsequently organized through Causal Layered Analysis (CLA) across four layers: litany, systemic/social causes, worldview/discourse, and myth/metaphor. Findings indicate that platform power is sustained by the interplay of market concentration, data and algorithmic monopolization, algorithmic exploitation, the multisided dependence of users and small businesses, and institutional/regulatory gaps. At the discourse layer, two competing framings, “innovation at any cost” and “digital justice,” structure legitimation and contestation of platform dominance. At the metaphor layer, recurring images such as the “digital empire,” “gateway,” “unleashed monster,” and “algorithm as final judge” reveal deeper cultural narratives that stabilize dependency and constrain governance imaginaries. Building on these layered findings, the study articulates three indicative future pathways for platform power in Iran: continued consolidation, discursive shift, and fragile balance, each shaped by key drivers and uncertainties regarding data transparency, regulatory capacity, and discursive legitimacy. The study contributes to platform power research by integrating empirically grounded thematic analysis with CLA to make visible how structural mechanisms, institutional conditions, and cultural imaginaries jointly shape alternative futures. The findings provide a basis for anticipatory digital governance, highlighting the need for coordinated interventions to address data/algorithmic accountability, institutional coherence, and legitimacy struggles surrounding innovation and justice.

Atoosa Ebrahimi Shah Abadi, Ali Mobini Dehkordi · 0 citations
Open access Aug 2026

Precarização do labor e gig economy no neoliberalismo

This article offers a critical analysis of the platformization of labor in the Brazilian context, understanding it as a renewed expression of the neoliberal logic of flexibilization and social unprotection. It argues that algorithmic intermediation does not inaugurate a novel form of service provision, but rather intensifies historical mechanisms of exploitation inherent to capitalism. The study examines how the 2017 labor reform, the expansion of outsourcing, and the discourse of the “entrepreneur of oneself” structure a scenario of growing precarization and risk transfer onto workers. It discusses the inadequacy of traditional Labor Law categories in identifying new forms of subordination and algorithmic control. Finally, it highlights the urgency of regulatory responses capable of confronting structural inequality and advancing beyond the capitalist form.

Sophia Evangelista Scherer · 0 citations
Open access 2026

BREAKING THE PARALLAX: BIG TECH IN INDIA

India’s fragmented regulatory architecture, spanning competition law, intermediary regulation, data governance, and sector-specific controls, produces overlapping and sometimes contradictory legal classifications of Big Tech firms, generating a parallax effect within law itself, enabling both regulatory discretion and strategic compliance by platforms.

P. Ashok · 0 citations