Reframing Self-improvement: Gig Economy and Collectivization in Delhi NCR

Abstract

The widely prevalent gig or in-demand digital platform ecosystem has spurred a number of ways in which young and old people are experiencing a transformation in their careers. A pivot of ethnographic and theoretical research in the gig economy has focused on the concept of “self-improvement” as a constant presence in the digitally enabled gig/digital economy. However, what has been fascinating in both this author’s ethnographic explorations, as also that of other scholar-activists, is the mutation of “self-improvement” from its traditional identification with expanding on resource-building opportunities in careers to that of building a cluster of relations that negotiate life chances. Because the longevity and sustainability of the gig economy is under constant threat, self-improvement is utilized as a framework by most gig workers to understand how they can introduce a semblance of “control” not only in their professional lives, but also in retrieving their lives from the constant presence of capital domination and its social tentacles. In this paper, I analyse “self-improvement” in the digital gig economy through the framework of Lauren Berlant’s “cruel optimism.” Through ethnographic work with Delhi NCR’s taxi drivers, I will critically reflect on first, what counts as “self-improvement” in the constantly shifting life-worlds of the gig economy and second, how do these negotiations reproduce and/or challenge the caste and gender politics that have historically informed how people understand their life chances, and third, if self-improvement in the gig economy informs “caring masculinities.” Through this paper, I provisionally argue that self-improvement can contribute to collectivization despite its identification with personal fulfilment and capitalist expansion.