Search for: All records

Research has primarily focused on understanding the perspectives and experiences of US based crowdworkers, leaving a notable gap to those within the Global South. To bridge this, we conducted a survey with 100 crowdworkers across 16 Latin American and Caribbean countries. To understand the tensions between the crowdworking economy abroad. In our study we found crowd work being the stepping stone to financial and professional independence among those we surveyed along with the tensions within data extraction among crowdworkers. 

As independently contracted employees, gig workers disproportionately suffer the consequences of workplace surveillance, which include increased pressures to work, breaches of privacy, and decreased digital autonomy. Despite the negative impacts of workplace surveillance, gig workers lack the tools, strategies, and workplace social support to protect themselves against these harms. Meanwhile, some critical theorists have proposed sousveillance as a potential means of countering such abuses of power, whereby those under surveillance monitor those in positions of authority (e.g., gig workers collect data about requesters or platforms). To understand the benefits of sousveillance systems in the gig economy, we conducted semi-structured interviews and led co-design activities with gig workers. We use care ethics as a guiding concept to understand our interview and co-design data, while also focusing on empathic sousveillance technology design recommendations. Through our study, we identify gig workers' attitudes towards and past experiences with sousveillance. We also uncover the types of sousveillance technologies imagined by workers, provide design recommendations, and finish by discussing how to create empowering, empathic spaces on gig platforms.