TY  - CHAP
AB  - Abstract While digital platforms tend to be unproblematically presented as the infrastructure of the sharing economy – as matchmakers of supply and demand – the authors argue that constituting the boundaries of infrastructures is political and performative, that is, it is implicated in ontological politics, with consequences for the distribution of responsibilities (Latour, 2003; Mol, 1999, 2013; Woolgar & Lezaun, 2013). Drawing on an empirical case study of Uber, including an analysis of court cases, the authors investigate the material-discursive production of digital platforms and their participation in the reconfiguring of the world (Barad, 2007), and examine how the (in)visibility of the digital infrastructure is mobilized (Larkin, 2013) to this effect. The authors argue that the representation of Uber as a “digital platform,” as “just the technological infrastructure” connecting car drivers with clients, is a political act that attempts to redefine social responsibilities, while obscuring important dimensions of the algorithmic infrastructure that regulates this socioeconomic practice. The authors also show how some of these (in)visibilities become exposed in court, and some of the boundaries reshaped, with implications for the constitution of objects, subjects and their responsibilities. Thus, while thinking infrastructures do play a role in regulating and shaping practice through algorithms, it could be otherwise. Thinking infrastructures relationally decentre digital platforms and encourage us to study them as part of ongoing and contested entanglements in practice.
VL  - 62
SN  - 978-1-78769-558-0, 978-1-78769-557-3/0733-558X
DO  - 10.1108/S0733-558X20190000062017
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X20190000062017
AU  - Pujadas Roser
AU  - Curto-Millet Daniel
ED  - Martin Kornberger
ED  - Geoffrey C. Bowker
ED  - Julia Elyachar
ED  - Andrea Mennicken
ED  - Peter Miller
ED  - Joanne Randa Nucho
ED  - Neil Pollock
PY  - 2019
Y1  - 2019/01/01
TI  - From Matchmaking to Boundary Making: Thinking Infrastructures and Decentring Digital Platforms in the Sharing Economy
T2  - Thinking Infrastructures
T3  - Research in the Sociology of Organizations
PB  - Emerald Publishing Limited
SP  - 273
EP  - 286
Y2  - 2024/04/26
ER  -