Spent Behind the Wheel Audiobook Libro.fm

Description

Are taxi drivers in todays era of the ridehail app performing care work akin to domestic and household labor Julietta Hua and Kasturi Ray examine the case study of contemporary professional passenger driving in the United States On the one hand they show the rise of the gig economy has brought new attention to the industry of professional passenger driving On the other hand the vulnerabilities that professional drivers experience remain hidden

Drawing on interviews with drivers labor organizers and members of licensing commissions as well as case law and other published resources Hua and Ray argue that working for ridehail companies like Uber and Lyft shares similarities with driving for taxi companies in the impact on driver lives Reproductive laborconventionally understood as feminized laboris extracted but masked behind the masculinized racialized bodies of drivers Professional driving is thus best understood alongside domestic and other gendered service work as reproductive labors devalued and often demonetized to benefit the national economy

Spent behind the Wheel is a must for listeners interested in critical studies of technological change and the gig economy showing how drivers capacities are drained for the benefit of riders corporations and the maintenance of the racial state