App work may be pushing people to the right, says anthropologist

In emerging countries such as Brazil, India and the Philippines, workers from platforms such as Uber and Instagram sellers have found in social networks a means of survival, but also a fertile environment for the extreme right, in line with the rise of current governments in these countries.

For the Brazilian anthropologist Rosana Pinheiro Machado, the relationship between the insertion of these social groups in the labor market and the political position of the right are not coincidental.

It is possible that the very structure of the platforms—their highly individualized, merit-focused format—is exacerbating hyperliberal political tendencies, he argues.

This is the central hypothesis of a research work that will be coordinated by Pinheiro-Machado, a professor at the University of Bath (United Kingdom).

The anthropologist was awarded with funding in the amount of approximately 2 million euros (about R$ 11 million) by the European Research Council (of the European Union), one of the most prestigious grants in the world, announced this Thursday (17). Work should begin in May and is expected to last five years.

With years of work on the outskirts of Porto Alegre, seeking to understand the identification of workers from the so-called precariat, who lived through the incentive to consume during the years of PT governments, with the ideas of President Jair Bolsonaro (PL), Rosana talked to the sheet on the issues of the new world of work.

The research seeks to understand the contradictions of countries with emerging economies, with social classes that tend to support authoritarians. How did you get to this hypothesis? When we look at the theory of populism, we have a deficiency that is trying to understand from the point of view of the precarious worker, [fenômenos como] Donald Trump and Brexit. But the relationship of the world of work in countries that had crises after 2017 and countries in growth is different.

It is very different to have that stereotype worker of the Trump vote, the guy who lost his job in the industry, lost the welfare state, and populations like in India, where 80% of the rural population has always been in informality, or even in Brazil. . Political sentiment is quite different.

What these three countries have in common is that they were all considered great future democratic powers, they all made, in a cascade, an authoritarian turn, with some things in common, typical of the contradictions of these models.

You have millions of people leaving the poverty line, who have started to live the platformization of work — not just Uber, but Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Telegram. People who, in the broadest possible sense, use some digital platform to undertake.

This precarious worker, aspiring to the middle class, aligns himself with the authoritarian. The project’s hypothesis is to understand to what extent the platforms themselves are not exacerbating this process by their own structure, highly individualized, focused on merit, hyperliberal in essence.

This can have a profound impact on global democracy where it has platforming. There are millions of people working 20 hours a day, on their cell phones, receiving content. And because it also has an impact on the world of work: masses of workers who enter a system of illusion, believing that they will retire with bitcoins.

There is another aspect, which is to understand who the influencers are [influenciadores]because between this precarious worker and the populist politician there is a world of mediators.

What evidence is there in this direction in Brazil, for example? When Bolsonaro speaks the opposite of “stay at home”, which was open trade, what does the whole left think? That he’s a genocider, and he doesn’t understand how a part of the population continues to like him. But it is a part of the population that is totally aligned with a hyper-individualist project: this worker makes himself, he doesn’t need state policy, he hates what he calls “poor thing”.

Many of these populists have a direct message focused on the production of the internal enemy, which is the bad worker, the vagabond, and valuing the figure of the worker who wins for himself, who does not need the State. All progressive thinking goes in another direction, thinking of the State as a provider of social welfare and rights. Bolsonaro speaks to many of these workers when he promotes open trade, self-management of the pandemic, which is the opposite of collective management.

What is the political impact of this platforming of work? This is the biggest question of the project. All the literature on platformization and politics is more aligned in understanding the phenomenon of resistance, the possibilities of unionization, but it is a very small possibility of the politics of platforms.

Most of these workers are not necessarily Bolsonaristas, but they are very much linked to an individualist and conservative degree, more aligned with the right-wing camp and depoliticization than resistance. We are arguing that, as important as looking at mobilization, is understanding what is demobilizing on the platforms themselves.

Our initial hypothesis is that, as it is being platformed, a large part will fall into the mesh of the extreme right.

The political impact of this on these people who are doing business from their cell phone 20 hours a day is not yet known. We have to remember that they are entering places that are not only economic, but permeated with political values. There is no idea what this will result in a few years in terms of political subjectivity.

People spend hours working and receiving all kinds of information in a place where the extreme right has total hegemony, the left doesn’t even come close. It’s way beyond the hate office, they have a political ecosystem. This worker is much more exposed to these networks that are super entrepreneurial, “do it yourself”, “against the bum”.

Influencers, gamers, pop pastors, guys who help invest and are followed by millions of people, it’s all very much in line with Bolsonarism. It also has an aspect of understanding the renewal of Bolsonarism beyond Bolsonaro, as these conservative and hyper liberal groups continue to recruit members of the popular classes.

There is a whole universe of people much more sophisticated than that crude fake news that we fought. A much more persuasive, subtle and powerful environment, which is the dream of an illusion of a lifestyle.

Are movements like the anti-fascist couriers going against the grain? How do they fit into this scenario? They are in the opposite direction in the positive direction. They are a quantitatively small movement, but they play a very important role if they know how to use networks, create communication channels, including international ones. There are similar movements in the Philippines, of different types, not just anti-fascist, but other forms of cooperatives.

The world of resistance is very diverse, but it is in the opposite direction of an avalanche of this phase of neoliberalism, which is the destruction of everything. For now, we are being engulfed by this logic of deep individualization of this worker who is exploited and at the same time wants to exploit.

Has support for authoritarian governments grown in proportion to the share of the population that now has access to the internet in emerging countries? There is a coincidence of internet access and alignment with the extreme right, but it is because the extreme right, all over the world, has organized itself with social networks, it is not possible to know to what extent this is a direct connection.

We have, in the post-pandemic world, a greater level of connectivity and a level of platformization never seen in history. And we need to answer the political consequences of this, because it is a movement that is here to stay.

The street vendors from Porto Alegre, which I studied all my life, during the pandemic, went to Instagram. Nowadays, everyone has a cell phone, it’s expensive, it’s difficult to take an online class, but everyone can make an Instagram profile. We are talking about the precarious worker, not extreme poverty.

A good part of this research started with a curiosity that I had, in public Bolsonarista groups, a good part of this cluster was of sales groups on WhatsApp — sales groups in general, which were not political, but where Bolsonarista material circulated the most. We will look at all possible inputs in the process.

Would this class of the so-called precariat have the strength to change the dynamics of capitalism, in the sense of achieving greater social protection and rights, like the workers’ movements of the 20th century? I think so. The whole world is becoming precarious, including developed countries, and there is no political solution other than the transformation of capitalism via precarious layers, which are a large part of the population.

Either we are going to enter a hole where everyone believes it’s every man for himself, more or less as he is, or we’re going to have to see a process of transformation, like universal basic income, in which everyone has a minimum of dignity to survive. In addition to movements, which are still small, but which I believe due to their internationalization, they can show that it is possible to have other work models.

You say that it is also important to understand emotional reactions in this context. The theories of populism are always trying to understand who this worker is that is talked about in terms of nostalgia, resentment, hatred, because he lost his job, rights.

They are not only feeling angry, they also have to understand how these people create projects of illusion, what are the aspirations of these people, what are the dreams, how they delude themselves and what the extreme right tries to deliver to them.

We are at a peak in Brazil, with everyone trying to start a business online, which is not sustainable, and there will be a wave of disillusionment. What does the democratic field have to offer to this world of disillusionment? This world of people savagely undertaking online is very new.

How should you conduct the work of field? It is an ambitious research design. There are three simultaneous ethnographies of 14 months each, one in each country. The cities are yet to be defined, for now Rio, Manila and New Delhi are planned. Months of immersion, following the lives of these people daily, one researcher in each country.

We will create the database to be able to follow the platforming process of this worker, and see all the interactions with politicians, influencers and with this far-right world. Over the course of five years, we’ll see the trend of how he starts to interact with political material. Our hypothesis is that platformization leads many of these workers to the extreme right, and that there are many paths and reasons for this.

Let’s create this database from workers we have context for. We will also form a lexicon to be able to capture them, see what their feelings, dreams, their revolt are. We also want to hear those who are not yet converted, who stay away from politics.

X-RAY

Rosana Pinheiro-Machado, 42

Born in Porto Alegre, graduated in Social Sciences and PhD in Anthropology from UFRGS (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul). She is currently a professor in the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the University of Bath (England). She is the author of “Tomorrow will be bigger” (Planeta, 2019).