The International Digital Labor Network (INDL) is pleased to announce its seventh congress, which will be held for the first time in Latin America, in Santiago, Chile, October 28-30, 2024. The theme of INDL-7 “Digital Labor and Power Dynamics: Present and Future of Work Scenarios” aims to explore the different patterns and dynamics of power (domination, resistance, agency) that affect the conditions, experiences and rights of people engaged in different forms of digital labor.

The scope of digital labor has expanded exponentially in recent years, encompassing increasingly diverse modalities, such as the unpaid work of social network users, paid work mediated by digital work platforms (geolocated or Web-based), and formal employment in industries and digital media. Understood in a broader sense, it can also include various traditional occupations, both formal and informal, having undergone processes of digitization, platformization, and intensive use of big data and artificial intelligence.

The INDL-7 congress seeks to advance in the understanding of the way in which the different forms of social domination and control of labor that have characterized capitalist modernity are updated and reorganized, but are also contested and disputed by workers, throughout the different forms of digital labor.

Recent developments have shown that the new technological transformations are far from having fulfilled the utopia of a world with less work and greater autonomy, with significant processes of precarization, increased inequalities and strengthening of capital-labor asymmetries in different scenarios of digital labor. These inequalities and asymmetries in the field of labor intersect with other logics of domination based on gender, ethnicity, age, nationality, territory, among other axes of exclusion that shape the distribution of resources, opportunities and rights in our societies.

However, research has also shown how the various micro-, meso- and macro-power dynamics that cut across digital labor are both contested and controversial terrain. Under certain conditions, the most affected stakeholders deploy their individual and collective agency, re-signify the use of new technologies and create new material, institutional and symbolic resources that strain the various dynamics and mechanisms of power.

Through the communication of empirical studies and/or theoretical-conceptual perspectives, the INDL-7 congress seeks to generate a space for discussion on the way in which these diverse patterns and dynamics of power are constituted and deployed, allowing us to broaden our understanding of the trends towards digitalization, fragmentation and informalization that are transforming labor scenarios, redrawing social life and shaping possible future trajectories of the labor market.

The aim is to generate spaces for encounters and dialogue around studies and analyses that may focus on the different actors involved in power dynamics in digital labor (workers, local companies, digital platforms, multinationals, consumers, policymakers, etc.), on the various forms in which these are expressed (institutional frameworks, organizational and management models, imaginaries, practices, subjectivities, etc.) and on the different levels of social life in which they are deployed (daily interaction, organization, the State, global geopolitics, etc.).

It is of particular interest to encourage attention to the power dynamics between the North and the global South that are at play in the chains of production in which digital labor participates, as well as to those that unfold within the academic field itself dedicated to the study of digital labor (gender asymmetries, coloniality/decoloniality of knowledge, geopolitics of knowledge, etc.). Finally, the INDL-7 conference invites reflection on how the analysis of power dynamics within the territory of digital labor can contribute to the generation of alliances, the construction of political agendas and the design of public policies that contribute to the strengthening of social justice and sustainable development in our societies.

Topics

In this context, some of the topics of interest for the INDL-7 congress include, but are not limited to:

• Conceptual definition and descriptive characterization of labor markets and different modalities of digital labor.

• Specific types of activity or platforms: delivery, ride-sharing, personal care, domestic work, content moderation, freelance work, micro-tasking, data management, among others.

• New forms of rationalization and control of digital labor.

• Gender, racial and socioeconomic inequality in digital labor and/or its impact on the capital-labor conflict.

• The influence of large corporations and digital labor platforms in shaping North-South relations.

• Alienation, dispossession, commodification of the lives of male and female workers in the processes of digital labor.

• Strategies of resistance, collective organizing and empowerment of workers in digital labor environments.

• Effects of digitization and platformization on people working for the State.

• Digital labor in different specific productive sectors in comparative perspective.

• The role of regulatory systems and government policies in the formation of power structures and the protection of workers’ rights in the digital economy.

• Emerging forms of labor organization and trade unionism in the digital context and their ability to influence power relations.

• Work cultures and ideologies in relations of domination and resistance in digital labor.

• Everyday life, identities and local interactions in digital labor.

• Social representations of digital labor in contemporary culture.

• Sociotechnical networks, imaginaries and AI: Implications for digital labor.

• Human and non-human ecology of Artificial Intelligence and digital labor.

• Technologies of the self and emerging modes of subjectification in digital labor.

• Social theory and conceptual frameworks for the study of digital labor.

• Social networks, cultural changes and digitization of everyday life as fields of contestation of meanings and interests.

• Domination, collaboration and resistance among researchers interested in digital labor or between researchers and actors involved in digital environments.

• Challenges of the institutional regulation of digital labor markets.

• Challenges of the global governance of digital labor.

• Social justice, sustainable development and digital labor.

Submissions

Academics, PhD students, researchers, practitioners and experts interested in these topics are warmly welcome to submit abstracts for individual presentations.

Abstracts should have a maximum length of 400 words and can be submitted in Spanish, English or Portuguese. You need to create an account to submit. Uploaded files should be anonymous for reviewers, and should contain:

• Title
• Abstract (object of empirical study or theoretical reflection, main empirical findings and/or theoretical development of the topic, methodology, relevance and contribution to the study of power relations in digital labor).

Abstracts may be accepted for oral or poster presentation.

Graduate students in the early stages of research are invited to submit their work directly for consideration in the poster format by checking the appropriate option when submitting their abstract.

Important Dates

• Deadline for abstract submission: May 31, 2024
• Acceptance notification: June 29, 2024
• Registration opens: TBA
• INDL-7 conference date: 28-30, October 2024

We look forward to receiving innovative proposals that will enrich the North-South dialogue on digital labor and power dynamics at the upcoming INDL-7 congress of the International Digital Labor Network (INDL). We are convinced that as in previous editions of this congress, the gathering of this vibrant community will provide the opportunity to create new friendships, networks and fruitful academic collaborations.

This edition of the INDL-7 conference is organized through a collaborative alliance with different research centers and programs of Chilean universities, specifically, the Evolution of Work Millennium Nucleus (MNEW); the Program of Psychosocial Studies of Work (PEPET), Faculty of Psychology, Universidad Diego Portales; the Center for Organizations and Labor Relations (COR), Universidad Alberto Hurtado; the Center for the Study of Conflict and Social Cohesion (COES); the Institute of Government and Public Affairs, Universidad Austral; the Millennium Nucleus Futures of Artificial Intelligence Research (FAIR); and the Digital Platform Labor (DiPLab) research initiative. The event is also sponsored by the International Labor Organization (ILO), the United Nations agency responsible for setting international labor standards to promote social and economic justice.

Information regarding the following will be published soon on this website:

• Scholarships for Registration
• Scholarships for lodging and meals
• Conference membership/registration fees, adjusted to participants’ available funding.

Contact

If you have any questions you may email us at contact@indl.network

We look forward to receiving your submissions and to fostering an engaging and thought-provoking discussion at the conference.