Beetle Boxes
Beetle Boxes
A hint at our new reality
The primary question posed in the gig economy is around the ‘trick’ that the product is low cost and low effort – but the hidden cost and effort is paid by the gigger – just like the Mechanical Turk shown here which tricked the courts of Europe in the 18th century that a machine could beat them at chess – in fact it was a man hidden in the box who played the chess. Amazon has adopted this as the name of their gigging platform where giggers are paid pennies per task e.g. identifying the bridge in a picture so it can be used to spot bots on entry to commercial websites. This has significant onward impacts on our broader economy.
Inspired by Prassl, Jeremias, Humans as a Service: The Promise and Perils of Work in the Gig Economy (Oxford, 2018; online edn, Oxford Academic, 19 Apr. 2018).
Dynamic Structural Model of the Gig Economy
This model developed by Page-Tickell & Yerby (2020) describes the currents of influence to enhance or denude the capacity to act for stakeholders in the gig economy. With varying intentions of engagement (peak precarity to lifestyle freedom) voice, agency and identity are proposed as mediators operating within locations of tenure, collective, trust, reward and place. These interact dynamically to moderate the impact of gigging across individuals, groups, localities and regions.
Project leads
- Rebecca Page-Tickell, Associate Professor, RDSBL
- Dr Elaine Yerby, Senior Lecturer, University of Essex Barry Collins, Senior Lecturer, RDSBL
- Dr Shampa Roy-Mukherjee, Associate Professor and vice Dean, RDSBL
- Dr Michael Harrison, Senior Lecturer in Finance, RDSBL
- Jude Ritchie, Lecturer in HRM RDSBL
- Dr Andrew Boocock, Senior Lecturer, RDSBL
- Catherine Hobby, Senior Lecturer Law, RDSBL
- Dr Ali Naghieh, Senior Lecturer, Middlesex
- Therese Page-Tickell, University of Southampton