Project Overview
This project seeks to examine discourses about gig work and explore the experiences of immigrants working in different facets of the platform economy, as well as those employed in remote work.
The project will focus on the everyday occupational experiences of immigrant platform workers to understand how they perceive and navigate their employment and daily routines when engaged in ‘non-traditional’ forms of work. It aims to understand these in relation to contemporary and dominant discourses on gig work.
Research Questions
- What are the discourses shaping the platform economy?
- What contextual factors shape the occupational experiences of immigrant workers within the platform economy?
- How does engaging in platform and/or remote work reconfigure traditional borders and boundaries in immigrants’ lives?
- In what ways do platform and/or remote workers nagivate “occupational balance” among the different revenue-generating occupations they engage in?
Methods
- Discourse Analysis
- In-Depth Interviews
Collaborators
UBC Centre for Migration Studies
- Principal Investigator: Suzanne Huot (Assistant Professor, Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy)
Toronto Metropolitan University
- Anna Triandafyllidou (Professor, Sociology)
- Marshia Akbar (Professor, Sociology)
- Hari KC (Research Fellow, CERC in Migration and Integration)
- Aziz Rahman (Research Fellow, CERC in Migration and Integration)
- Laura Lam (Research Assistant, CERC in Migration and Integration)
University of Toronto Mississauga
- Samantha Jackson (Postdoctoral Fellow, Language Studies)
Outputs
Work in progress
Project Status
This project is currently in the Planning phase.
This research was undertaken thanks in part to funding from the Canada First Research Excellence Fund.
