Managing Occupational Balance in Platform and Remote Work

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.