Digital | Economy | Africa – a year on, the ‘Digital’ is as important as ever!

2 April 2020 0

A year ago, we had the pleasure and privilege of convening the Digital | Economy | Africa Conference at the School of Tourism and Hospitality, University of Johannesburg. This conference brought together key international experts and stakeholders and covered the themes of digital entrepreneurship, digital jobs/gig work, information economy, innovation hubs, and the changing geographies… Read More: Digital | Economy | Africa – a year on, the… »

Digital Labour at Economic Margins: African Workers and the Global Information Economy. (Forthcoming Publication)

5 January 2020 0

I have a new publication coming out soon in the Review of African Political Economy, with my colleague Mark Graham. The paper is based on the research we have been carrying out over a number of years in Africa. It deals with the role African digital labour is playing in the global information economy and… Read More: Digital Labour at Economic Margins: African Workers and the Global… »

Hidden Transcripts of the Gig Economy: Labour Agency and the New Art of Resistance among African Gig Workers. (New Publication)

21 December 2019 0

I have a new publication out with my colleague Amir Anwar that draws on the years of research we have done with digital workers in Sub-Saharan Africa. Details, and a link to download the paper are below. Anwar, M. A. and Graham, M. (Forthcoming) Hidden Transcripts of the Gig Economy: Labour Agency and the New… Read More: Hidden Transcripts of the Gig Economy: Labour Agency and the… »

Call for papers: Digital Work in the Planetary Market (AAG 2020)

12 September 2019 0

Call for papers: Digital Work in the Planetary Market Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers Denver, Colorado April 6-10, 2020 Session Organizers: Mark Graham, Fabian Ferrari Sponsored by the Economic Geography Specialty Group (EGSG) Work, and the networks that extract value from it, are increasingly embedded into planetary systems. As ever more work… Read More: Call for papers: Digital Work in the Planetary Market (AAG… »

Coming soon… The Gig Economy A Critical Introduction

17 August 2019 0

I’m very happy to announce the first sharable details about my new forthcoming book (co-authored with Jamie Woodcock). The book will be out in November, but you can already pre-order it with a 20% discount using this flyer or the code GIG20 on the Polity Books website. The Gig Economy  A Critical Introduction  Jamie Woodcock &… Read More: Coming soon… The Gig Economy A Critical Introduction »

Society and the Internet: How Networks of Information and Communication are Changing Our Lives (second edition) now out!

23 July 2019 0

I’m thrilled to announce that the second edition of Society and the Internet is now out!! The book has been fully updated since the first edition and contains new chapters on topics such as fake news, memes, digital health, and the platform economy. The volume contains 24 chapters from authors who speak from a diverse… Read More: Society and the Internet: How Networks of Information and Communication… »

Join the Fairwork research team. The project is hiring a Postdoctoral Researcher.

18 June 2019 0

Postdoctoral Researcher Oxford Internet Institute, 1 St Giles, Oxford Grade 7: £32,236 – £39,609 p.a. Our colleagues over at the Fairwork Foundation are looking for someone to join a team of researchers from around the world. This position provides an exciting opportunity to work with the team to co-develop standards of fair work and apply them… Read More: Join the Fairwork research team. The project is hiring a… »

Mapping the Availability of Online Labour in 2019

5 June 2019 0

In previous blog posts, we’ve mapped the availability of online labour in 2016 [1] and in 2017 [2] using the data provided by the Online Labour Index (OLI) measuring the utilization of online labour platforms [3]. The OLI is based on tracking all projects and tasks posted into a selected sample of platforms, using API access… Read More: Mapping the Availability of Online Labour in 2019 »

The Digital Knowledge Economy Index: Mapping Content Production

23 May 2019 0

The Geonet team has a new paper out: Ojanperä, S., Graham, M., and Zook, M. 2019. The Digital Knowledge Economy Index: Mapping Content Production. The Journal of Development Studies. DOI: 10.1080/00220388.2018.1554208. The paper proposes the construction of a Digital Knowledge Economy Index. It then compares country rankings on this index to more traditional metrics like… Read More: The Digital Knowledge Economy Index: Mapping Content Production »

New Article: Does economic upgrading lead to social upgrading in contact centers? Evidence from South Africa.

15 April 2019 0

Mark Graham and I have just published a new article in the African Geographical Review. The article’s main argument is that economic upgrading in the South African BPO industry can lead to both social upgrading and downgrading among contact centre agents. Anwar, M. A. and Graham, M. (2019) Does economic upgrading lead to social upgrading… Read More: New Article: Does economic upgrading lead to social upgrading in… »