Algorithmic Antagonism

Table of Contents

1. Frontmatter

2. Chapter 1. Introduction

   Hui Huang

   Abstract

   This introductory chapter situates the book within the global digital transformation of work. It traces how advanced technologies—especially artificial intelligence, big data, and algorithmic management—have reconfigured production, organisation, and labour relations in what scholars call ‘digital capitalism’ or ‘platform capitalism.’ The chapter reviews interdisciplinary debates on how platform-mediated work reshapes the labour process, generating new regimes of algorithmic control, precarity, and fragmented worker subjectivities, while also prompting emerging forms of resistance. It identifies key theoretical gaps in existing research—particularly the neglect of normative control, political-economic context, and Global South perspectives. Focusing on China’s rapidly expanding food-delivery sector, the chapter situates platform labour within the country’s distinctive institutional landscape shaped by the hukou system, weak labour regulation, and a techno-developmental state agenda. By adopting a labour process lens, the book aims to unpack how digital technologies restructure capitallabour relations and reproduce new forms of subordination and agency in China’s digital workplace.

3. Chapter 2. Renewing Labour Process Theory in the Digital Workplace

   Hui Huang

   Abstract

   This chapter introduces the rationale for adopting Labour Process Theory (LPT) as the overarching theoretical framework. It first elaborates the foundational concepts and analytical tenets of classic LPT by revisiting the works of Harry Braverman, Michael Burawoy, Richard Edwards, Paul Edwards, and Paul Thompson. Particular attention is given to the analytical dimensions of control and resistance—specifically rational and normative forms of control, as well as individual and collective forms of resistance. The chapter then transitions to a critical renewal of LPT in the context of the digital workplace. Drawing on recent literature on platform labour and algorithmic management, I dissect how algorithmic control reconfigures workplace relations, giving rise to what I term platform precarity. This section also reviews emerging scholarship on platform workers’ resistance, setting the stage for the book’s empirical chapters.

4. Chapter 3. Algorithmic Coercion: The Rational Control of Platform Labour

   Hui Huang

   Abstract

   This chapter explores the rational dimension of algorithmic management in the food-delivery platform economy. Extending Braverman’s deskilling thesis and the concept of rational control into the domain of platform-mediated labour, I unpack how algorithmic systems are deployed to extract surplus labour. I identify a set of rational control techniques—smart machinery control, information monopolisation, algorithm-mediated stakeholder governance, and gamified incentive-penalty systems—which together constitute what I term a rational algorithmic control ecosystem. This ecosystem not only disciplines and fragments workers geographically and temporally but also degrade the labour process through a form of digital Taylorism.

5. Chapter 4. Algorithmic Hegemony: The Normative Control of Platform Labour

   Hui Huang

   Abstract

   This chapter turns to the normative dimension of algorithmic control, drawing on Burawoy’s theory of consent and subsequent developments in normative control theory. Here, I develop the concept of consent infrastructure to explain how platforms foster compliance and self-discipline through gamification, emotional labour, entrepreneurial rhetoric, and the illusion of autonomy. The chapter demonstrates how this hegemonic logic of control legitimates exploitative working conditions while depoliticising labour relations in the name of flexibility and meritocracy.

6. Chapter 5. Platform Precarity of Food-Delivery Drivers

   Hui Huang

   Abstract

   This chapter investigates how platform precarity is institutionally and structurally produced, with particular focus on the interaction between platform governance and state policies. I argue that the precarity of Chinese migrant fooddelivery drivers is shaped by three interlocking mechanisms: platforms’ outsourcing of labour recruitment through third-party agencies to avoid legal liabilities; intensified algorithmic control and performance management; and the persistent exclusion of rural migrants from full urban citizenship, which compels them to accept precarious platform labour as a last resort. These structural vulnerabilities constrain workers’ capacity to resist, and any emergent collective actions are often subject to suppression by both platforms and the state.

7. Chapter 6. Riders on the Storm: Amplified Precarity During the Pandemic

   Hui Huang

   Abstract

   This chapter situates platform precarity within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. It explores how antipandemic measures adopted by both platforms and the government reshaped algorithmic governance and magnified drivers’ insecurity, livelihood crises, and social marginalisation. This chapter draws attention to how public health rationales were entangled with technological control, resulting in the intensification of precarity under a biopolitical mode of algorithmic management.

8. Chapter 7. Everyday Algorithmic Resistance

   Hui Huang

   Abstract

   This chapter shifts the focus to everyday individual resistance and the micro-politics of negotiation and survival under algorithmic domination. Drawing on my two-stage ethnographic research, I identify three modes of individualised resistance—dodging algorithms, leveraging algorithmic loopholes, and subverting platform expectations—which workers employ to tactically reclaim autonomy. These fragmented and often invisible forms of resistance constitute what I term a ‘tug-of-war’ dynamic, in which platforms continuously update algorithmic systems to suppress worker strategies, prompting further adaptations by workers. This co-evolution reveals resistance not as a static act but as an ongoing dialectic within the contested terrain of the digital workplace.

9. Chapter 8. Delivering Collective Solidarity and the Role of TikTok

   Hui Huang

   Abstract

   This chapter analyses emerging forms of collective resistance among Chinese food-delivery drivers, with a particular focus on their creative use of TikTok. While much of the literature sees algorithmic systems as unilaterally imposing control, I argue that workers can leverage the same algorithmic architectures for subversive ends. Drawing on digital ethnography, this chapter shows how drivers use TikTok to organise collective actions—such as mass refusals to take orders—and to stage reputational attacks against platforms. These algorithmically mediated forms of resistance demonstrate that the digital workplace, while deeply structured by control, remains a contested terrain.

10. Chapter 9. Conclusion

    Hui Huang

    Abstract

    This chapter offers a general discussion and conclusion. I reflect on the theoretical and empirical contributions of the book in relation to labour process theory, algorithmic control, platform precarity, and the lived experiences of China’s rural migrant workers. I also discuss the generalisability and limitations of the research and suggest potential directions for future study on the political economy of digital labour and worker resistance in China and beyond

11. Backmatter