Navigating platform work through solidarity and hustling: the case of ride-hailing drivers in Nairobi, Kenya

Abstract

Scholarship about worker precarity, economic insecurity, and individualized risk in platform work tends to ignore that these trends are common features of informal economies in countries like Kenya, which has a culture of hustling rooted in economic opportunism and political resistance. Recognizing the parallels between the platform economy and Kenya’s informal economy, we examine individual and collective strategies ride-haling drivers in Kenya use to navigate the precarity of platform work.

Keywords

• platform work
• in-depth interviews
• ride-hailing apps
• uber
• informal economy
• kenya