Hegel and Marx diagnosed the state of self-estrangement or alienation of the proletarian workers from processes and products of labor, coworkers, community, and the self. Presently, such alienation re-manifests among the immigrant and racially minoritized delivery riders, who comprise the bulk of the workforces of the digital platform capitalism, with repercussions on their societal integration.
Paradoxically, on-demand platform delivery work enables the immigrant messengers’ temporary labor insertion and mobility through the urban landscape of the host city, ergo, a broader scope for day-to-day social and spatial interactions with coinhabitants and their establishments. Such diverse encounters could stimulate the immigrant messengers’ social cohesion within the host communities and acculturation to the host language and customs.
This chapter builds on mental mapping and semi-structured interviews with immigrant messengers from the Glovo and Deliveroo platforms in the Barcelona metropolitan area amid the March 2020 coronavirus lockdown. Reinforced by interactions with immigrant platform riders via their social media and chat groups, the chapter explores their contrasting workaday experiences of alienation and acculturation in the host society, revealing exchanges that could partially diminish their segregation, fostering their integration.
