Feminist Futures of Work

Payal Arora is a digital anthropologist and author of award-winning books, including The Next Billion Users with Harvard Press. Her expertise lies in digital cultures, inequality, and inclusive design. She is a Professor and Chair in Technology, Values, and Global Media Cultures at Erasmus University, and Co-Founder of FemLab.Co, a future of work initiative. Usha Raman is a professor in the Department of Communication, University of Hyderabad. Her research and teaching span the areas of journalism pedagogy, critical studies of science, health and technology, feminist media studies, and digital culture. She was elected Vice President of IAMCR for the period 2020-2024. She is co-founder of FemLab.Co, an IDRC-funded initiative on feminist futures of work. René König is a sociologist interested in the co-evolution of the internet and society. He has worked in the field of Technology Assessment and is currently a PhD student at the University of Stuttgart.

"To bring a world of just and equitable work into being, we need truly inclusive visions and strategies. This powerful book deploys a feminist lens to do just that from a diverse range of perspectives." Prof. Mark Graham, Professor at Oxford Internet Institute and Founder of Fairwork foundation "For over a century, feminism has fought for women’s rightful, equal place in economies and societies. This thoughtfully conceived, keenly perceptive, and accessibly written book continues the quest, capturing the modern-day struggle of women’s working lives in a digital world. A must-read for anyone interested in promoting more equitable and inclusive labour markets -- today and in the future." Sabina Dewan, President & Executive Director, JustJobs Network.

• Acknowledgements Preface (Gillian Dowie) Introduction - The Tangled Web of Women in Work: A Feminist Account (Usha Raman, Payal Arora, and René König) Design 1. AI Design of Ride-hailing Platforms: A Feminist Analysis (Pallavi Bansal) 2. Making Opportunities Inclusive for First-time Digital Users (Shrinath V) 3. Globalized Creative Economies: Rethinking Local Craft, Provenance, and Platform Design (Laura Herman ) 4. Leveraging Platforms to Bridge the Gender Divide and Drive Inclusive Growth: Perspectives and Recommendations from India (Aishwarya Raman and Chhavi Banswal) 5. Women Resellers in India’s Gig Economy: From Access to Confidence (Achyutha Sharma) 6. Whisper Networks and Workarounds: Negotiating Urban Company’s Interface ( Sai Amulya Komarraju) Governance 1. Entrepreneurship in Collective Craft Economies in Bangladesh (Upasana Bhattacharjee) 2. Enabling Women’s Digital Participation: The Case for Meaningful Connectivity (Radhika Radhakrishnan, Ana María Rodríguez Pulgarín, and Teddy Woodhouse) 3. Not Quite the Death of Distance in Chennai: Challenging the Resettlement Utopia of Perumbakkam (Sunitha Don Bosco and Maartje van Eerd) 4. Superbrands—Too Big to Be Fair? (René König and Paula Wittenburg) 5. Teachers in India and EdTech: A New Part of the Gig Economy? (Krishna Akhil Kumar Adavi and Aditi Surie) 6. Migrant Workers and Digital Inclusion in the Construction Sector in India (Shweta Mahendra Chandrashekhar) Networks 1. What Lies in the Shadows of a Stakeholder Analysis? A Methodological Analysis to Contextualize the Lives of Women Workers in the Global South (Chinar Mehta) 2. Why Stories Matter for Representation, Action, and Collectivization (Siddharth de Souza and Siddhi Gupta) 3. Ethical Consumerism: Gig economy’s Road Ahead (Brinda Gupta) 4. Climate Change and the Future of Work in Developing Countries (Jamil Wyne) 5. Challenging Capitalist Patriarchy and Negotiating for Women Worker Rights: Exploring the ‘Right to Sit’ Movement in Kerala (Anila Backer) 6. Digital Leisure and Aspirational Work among Venezuelan Refugee and Migrant Women in Brazil (Daniela Jaramillo-Dent, Julia Camargo, Payal Arora, Amanda Alencar, John Warnes, and Erika Pérez) Vision 1. Beyond Underpaid Women and Robots: Towards a Better Future of Care Work (Sharmi Surianarain and Kathryn (Kate) Boydell) 2. Work and Place: The Non-Boundaries of Women’s Work (Usha Raman) 3. The Future of Dishonourable Work (Payal Arora) 4. The Future of Development Innovation and Finance is Feminist (Ramona Liberoff) 5. Rethinking a Crippled Society (Soumita Basu) Conclusion Defining FemWork for Labour Futures (Payal Arora, Usha Raman, and René König) Index List of Tables, Graphs, and Images