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Revisiting Engels’ ‘housing question’: Work and housing conditions of immigrant platform delivery riders in Barcelona
Revisiting Engels’ ‘housing question’: Work and housing conditions of immigrant platform delivery riders in Barcelona
- Source :
- UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
- Publication Year :
- 2021
- Publisher :
- SAGE Publications, 2021.
-
Abstract
- In his 1872 The housing question, Friedrich Engels addressed the housing problems faced by the proletarian migrant workers in major industrial centres. He asserted that they could only be solved by first resolving their harsh working conditions in the capitalist mode of mass production. Presently, with transnational migrant flows to urban centres and the mass acceptance of the digital platform economy, the housing question manifests itself, among other expressions, in the case of immigrants working in this digital contract-based market. While the platform economy provides immigrants with quick access into a host country’s labour market, the income insecurity and high risks associated with such work put them in a state of precariousness. Through the framework of Engels’ proposed action lines and analysis of observations and interviews with immigrant riders working for the food delivery platforms Glovo and Deliveroo, the paper highlights the negative impacts that this contemporary capitalist model of work, the municipal housing plan and the ongoing Covid-19 crisis have on the immigrant riders’ residential and working conditions in Barcelona, Spain, a city facing a severe rental housing shortage. Lastly, it suggests that, while the social market economy in Spain can be reformed to ameliorate the negative impacts of the platform economy on immigrant riders, bridging the gap between immigrant housing provision and employment inclusion would need to consider decent labour and housing as rights for residents, immigrants included, asserting the currency of Engels’ ideas.
- Subjects :
- Barcelona
Economic growth
Trabajadores inmigrantes
Repartidores
media_common.quotation_subject
Geography, Planning and Development
Immigration
0211 other engineering and technologies
02 engineering and technology
Urbanisme::Aspectes socials [Àrees temàtiques de la UPC]
Condiciones laborales
0502 economics and business
Habitatge
Sociology
Economía de plataformas
media_common
Proletariat
Vivienda
Migrant workers
05 social sciences
021107 urban & regional planning
Philosophy
Work (electrical)
Housing
Housing problems
050203 business & management
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 2633674X and 19427786
- Volume :
- 14
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Human Geography
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....263e384b0a5dfd68e86ddeff524bbc4d
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1177/19427786211010131