Numar de credite: 7

Cod: AME3048

Predare: curs 2h, seminar 1h

Limba de predare: Engleză

Tip: obligatoriu, semestru 3, Master Muncă și transformări sociale

Lectures

1.     Introduction of the course (topics, requirements, evaluation)

2.     Infrastructures: from system to network to platform

3.     The planetary labor market

4.     Platforms and platform capitalism

5.     Precarity in digital and gig work

6.     The fragmentation of labor: tasks and microwork

7.     Algorithmic management

8.     Worker monitoring and labor surveillance

9.     AI and invisible labor

10. AI and platform opacity

11. Platform regulation: labor and monopoly

12. Labor conflicts and resistance

13. The future of work

14. Students’ presentations of final essay drafts 

Seminars

The seminars will closely follow the topics of lectures and discuss the readings recommended for each topic.

Bibliography

Aloisi, Antonio & Valerio de Stefano. 2022. Your boss is an algorithm: Artificial intelligence, platform work and labour. Bloomsbury.

Allmer, Thomas et all (eds). 2024. Critical perspectives on digital capitalism. tripleC 22 (1): 140-433.

Altenried, M. 2022. The Digital Factory: The Human Labor of Automation. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

Benanav, Aaron. 2020. The Automation Discourse. In Automation and the Future of Work. New York: Verso.

Crawford, Kate. 2021. Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence. Yale University Press.

Durand, Cedric. 2024. How Silicon Valley unleashed techno-feudalism. NY: Verso.

Dyer-Witherford, Nick; Atle Mikkola Kjosen; James Steinhoff. 2019. Introduction + Conclusion. Inhuman Power: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Capitalism. London: Pluto Press.

Gray, M. and Suri, S. 2019. Ghost labor: how to stop Silicon Valley from building a new global underclass. Boston: Harcourt.

Jones, P. 2021. Work without the worker (ch. 1 & Postscript). Verso.

Mezzadra, Sandro et all (eds). 2024. Capitalism in the platform age. Springer.

Niebler, V. 2023. Transcending borders? Horizons and challenges of global tech worker solidarity. Journal of political sociology 1(2).

Ravenelle, Alexandra J. 2019. Hustle and Gig: Struggling and Surviving in the Sharing Economy [ch 4 & 7]. University of California Press.

Rikap, Cecilia. 2025. The rulers: corporate power in the age of AI and the cloud. NY: Verso.

Schor, Juliet. 2020. Earning on the platforms [ch. 2]. In After the gig: how the sharing economy got hijacked and how to win it back. University of California Press.

Srnicek, Nick. 2017. Platform Capitalism [ch 2]. London: Polity Press.

Stark, David and Ivana Pais. 2020. Algorithmic Management in the Platform Economy. Sociologica 14 (3).

Thorhauge, Anne et all (eds.). 2024. The economic lives of platforms: Rethinking the political economy of digital markets. Bristol University Press.

Vallas, Steven and Juliet Schor. 2020. What do platforms do? Understanding the gig economy. Annual Review of Sociology 46 (16):1–22.

Vandaele, K. & Silivia Rainone (eds.). 2025. The Elgar compantion to regulating platform work. Elgar Publishing.

Bibliografie optionala

Atanasoski, Neda and Kalindi Vora. 2019. Automation and the Invisible Service Function: Toward an “Artificial Artificial Intelligence,” pp. 87-107. In Surrogate Humanity: Race, Robots and the Politics of Technological Futures. Durham: Duke University Press.

Benjamin, Ruha. 2019. Race after technology. Polity Press.

Bilic, P., Primorac, J. and Valtysson, B. 2018. Technology, labor and politics in the 21st century. In Technologies of labor and the politics of contradiction. London: Palgrave, pp. 1-16.

Callum, Cant. 2020. The warehouse without walls: A workers’ inquiry at Deliveroo. Ephemera 20(4): 131-161.

Chan, Jenny et all. 2020. Dying for an iPhone: Apple, Foxconn and the lives of China’s workers [ch 1 & 8]. Haymarket Books.

Chesta, Riccardo et all. 2019. Food delivery workers’ struggles in Italy. PACO 12(3): 819-844.

Holland, John. 2020. Amazon Inquiry. https://notesfrombelow.org/article/amazon-inquiry

Huws, U. 2014. Labor in the global digital economy: The Cybertariat comes of age. New York: Monthly Review Press.

Kasmir Sharryn si Lesley Gill (eds). 2022. The Routledge Handbook of the Anthropology of Labor. London: Routledge.

Mackenzie, Adrian. 2025. 1000 Platforms: Ensembles as Ontological Experiments. Bristol University Press.

McQuillan, D. 2022. Resisting AI. Policy Press.

Pasquinelli, Matteo. 2023. The eye of the master: a social history of artificial intelligence. NY: Verso.

Seaver, Nick. 2022. Computing Taste: Algorithms and the Makers of Music Recommendation. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

Shestakofsky, B. 2017. Working Algorithms: Software Automation and the Future of Work. Work and Occupations, 44(4), 376–423.

Yates, Luke. 2024. Platform politics. Bristol University Press.

Zuboff, S. 2018. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. Profile Books

Lectures

70% Written essay (based on pre-defined comparative structure)

Seminars

30% Ongoing evaluation of active participation based on the readings from the course bibliography

General objective of the course

The rise of digital platforms has been heralded as both a new stage of digital capitalism and a form of hybrid techno-feudalism. Global platforms now structure work, leisure, communication, cultural production, and political participation—transforming economies and societies while attracting intense criticism and regulatory scrutiny. Some view them as enablers of work flexibility, while others warn of their monopolistic control, exploitative practices, and escalation of precarious work.

This course examines the political and economic shifts shaping contemporary capitalism in an era of rapid technological change. Students will explore the multiple forms of platform work within an uneven global labor market, where platforms often serve as infrastructures of migration. They will analyze the implications of artificial intelligence and algorithmic management for the (re)division of labor, worker autonomy, and power dynamics—while considering how legal and political mechanisms might counteract these effects.

Finally, the course will investigate the challenges of labor solidarity and resistance in platform economies, as well as possible futures of work in an age of AI and automation. Through critical engagement with key debates, students will gain a deeper understanding of labor’s evolving role in digital capitalism and the forces shaping its transformation.

Specific objective of the course

To enable students to define and analyse platforms and platform capitalism;  

To provide a nuanced understanding of different types of platform labor from a comparative and critical perspective;

To enable students to analyse the interplay between technological and social change;

To provide students conceptual and methodological tools for engaging in public debate and policy advocacy.