Affective Governmentality in Food Delivery Platforms: A Study of Bolt Food Riga Push Notifications

Maija Spuriņa; Iveta Ķešāne

doi:10.18778/1733-8077.21.2.06

Authors

Maija Spuriņa Latvian Academy of Culture https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6978-1322
Iveta Ķešāne Latvian Academy of Culture https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0151-5407

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.21.2.06

Keywords:

On-Demand Labor, Algorithmic Management, Affective Governmentality, Asymmetry of Power

Abstract

The paper uses a governmentality perspective to discuss the issue of control in food delivery platforms through analysis of 4083 push notifications sent by the Bolt Food platform to its couriers in Riga from 2020 to 2023. It examines intensity, rationalization, subjectification, and the use of emojis in push notifications and demonstrates affective governmentality technology to control labor mobility. The analysis contributes to the literature on algorithmic management that focuses predominantly on the control embedded in the platform application. Suppose a platform application is viewed as an algorithmic panopticon in which a worker is free to enter or exit by signing on or off. In that case, other semi-automated control technologies, such as push notifications, are affective persuasive tools for bringing workers into the panopticon that limits workers’ autonomy and control.

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Author Biographies

Maija Spuriņa, Latvian Academy of Culture

Maija Spuriņa is an associate professor at the Department of Cultural Sociology and Management, Latvian Academy of Culture, where she teaches cultural theory and cultural sociology and conducts research on collective memory, digitalization, and the cultural aspects of the gig economy. She holds a Ph.D. in sociology from the New School for Social Research. In 2018, she was a post‐doctoral fellow at Yale University, Macmillan Center for International Studies. Her work appears in such peer-reviewed journals as Sociological Review (forthcoming), Social Inclusion, and Memory Studies. From 2022 to 2024, she led a research project on the practice and meaning of gig work among food delivery couriers in Riga. Currently, she is leading a research project on militarization and the meanings of war with a special focus on youth in Latvia. She uses predominantly qualitative research methods but is interested in finding ways to combine traditional qualitative research with analysis of readily available digital data and the use of digital tools in data analysis.

Iveta Ķešāne, Latvian Academy of Culture

Iveta Ķešāne is an associate professor at the Department of Cultural Sociology and Management, Latvian Academy of Culture. Iveta received her Ph.D. in sociology from Kansas State University (USA). Her research interests are related to the sociology of emotions, cultural sociology, political sociology, development sociology, and migration sociology. Her work appears in such peer-reviewed journals as Sociological Review (forthcoming), Cultural Sociology, Emotions and Society (with L. Ozoliņa), Nationalities Papers, Emotion, Space and Society, Social Currents (with L. Frank Weyher), and Communist and Post‐Communist Studies. From 2022 to 2024, Iveta was the principal researcher in a project on the meaning and practice of autonomy in the platform economy. Currently, she is researching militarization and the meanings of war with a special focus on youth.

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