Trabalho plataformizado no território brasileiro: expressões a partir dos entregadores de aplicativo de Uberlândia

Abstract

In modern 21st century society, the ease of requesting services through digital platforms has become so ubiquitous that it's strange to think about how it used to be. With the growing adoption of platformized labor and a demand driven by digital connectivity, the phenomenon of the “uberization” of labor is increasingly being trivialized. This has resulted in a spread of workers submitting to temporary working conditions and the need for establishments to be present on digital platforms to offer and intermediate their services on the market, as part of this platform economy. The aim of this study is to understand the consequences of the platformization of food delivery work by app in the urban space, with the analysis focused on the city of Uberlândia, in the state of Minas Gerais. The methodology is based on an exploratory triangulation between a theoretical discussion of bibliographical nature, a survey of documents and secondary data, as well as the collection of material in the form of interviews and field study, in order to consolidate a critical analysis that grounds the phenomenal expressions in space in relation to their negative, as a dialectical form.. Secondary data suggests that, within a geographical context marked by relative surplus-population and the pervasive presence of digital platforms across the territory, capital progressively penetrates and restructures the social practices of everyday urban life. This process links the provision of supposed solutions, independent work activities, and technical progress to global-level speculation. As such, entangled in various strategies of financial speculation — such as tax evasion — and operate with both direct and indirect support from the state, far from resolving structural issues, platform capitalism represents a deepening of the crisis, driven by the fictionalization of capital and the increasing coercion of individuals into a tautological machine of labor. The results provide evidence for a critical interpretation of the deepening subordination of app workers and the phenomenal expressions on an urban scale, in the light of relations transposed by the commodity fetish.