I have been researching platform labour and the gig economy since 2015 when I joined the Microwork and Virtual Production Network (MVPN) and iLabour projects at the Oxford Internet Institute. My research focuses on the impact platforms have on working conditions and labour relations. In particular, the ways in which these platforms enable a fragmented workforce to come together to undertake collective action, form communities, and build collective organisations. I am continuing to investigate the gig economy whilst I work at the University of Birmingham and I’m currently planning a new research project that explores the impact the gig economy is having on class and representation.
Current collaborators
Vili Lehdonvirta, Mark Graham, Mohammad Amir Anwar
Selected Publications
Wood AJ, Martindale N, and Lehdonvirta V (2021) Dynamics of contention in the gig economy: Rage against the platform, customer or state?. New Technology, Work and Employment. Non-paywall version
Wood AJ and Lehdonvirta V (2021) Antagonism beyond employment: how the ‘subordinated agency’ of labour platforms generates conflict in the remote gig economy Socio-economic Review.
Wood A.J, Graham M, Lehdonvirta V, Hjorth I (2019) Networked but Commodified: The (Dis)Embeddedness of Digital Labour in the Gig Economy. Sociology 53(5): 931-950.
Wood A.J (2019) The Taylor Review: Understanding the gig economy, dependency and the complexities of control. New Technology, Work and Employment 34(2): 111-115. Non-paywall version.
Wood A.J, Graham M, Lehdonvirta V, Hjorth I (2019) Good gig, bad gig: autonomy and algorithmic control in the global gig economy. Work, Employment and Society 33(1): 56-75.
Wood A.J, Lehdonvirta V, Graham M (2018) Workers of the Internet unite? Online freelancer organisation in six Asian and African countries. New Technology, Work and Employment 33(2): 95-112.
Graham M, Lehonvirta V, Wood A.J, Barnard H, Hjorth I, Simon D.P (2017) The Risks and Rewards of Digital Gig Work at The Global Margins. University of Oxford, Oxford Internet Institute.
Book Chapters
Wood A.J, Graham M and Anwar A (2019) Minimum Wages for Online Labor Platforms? Regulating the Global Gig Economy. In Larsson A and Teigland R (Eds) ‘The Digital Transformation of Labor (Open Access): Automation, the Gig Economy and Welfare. London: Routledge
Working papers
Wood A.J and Lehdonvirta V (2019) ‘Platform Labour and Structured Antagonism: Understanding the Origins of Protest in the Gig Economy‘ Presented at the Oxford Internet Institute Platform Economy Seminar, March 5th 2019, Oxford UK.
Wood A.J and Lehdonvirta V (work in progress) ‘Platform work and ‘communities of coping’: surviving algorithmic insecurity in the gig economy’
Wood A.J and Lehdonvirta V (work in progress) ‘Is the gig economy creating a precariat? Evidence from the global remote gig economy’
Wood A.J and Lehdonvirta V (work in progress) ‘Beyond online spaces: the creation of places of work
community by spatially fragmented gig workers’
Other writings
Wood A.J and Graham M (2019) How gig economy platforms commodify labour in Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. New Internationalist, 28 February.
Wood A.J and Graham M (2018) Challenging exploitation in the gig economy. New Internationalist, 8 August.
Wood A.J (2018) Taylor Review: The government must stop delaying protection for gig economy workers. New Statesman, 9 February.
Graham M and Wood A.J (2017) How to resist the exploitation of digital gig workers. Red Pepper, 14 April.
Wood A.J (2017) Trade unions, the internet, and surviving the gig economy. Open Democracy, 11 April.
Graham M and Wood A.J (2016) Why the digital gig economy needs co-ops and unions. Open Democracy, 15 September.