[Air-L] The Social Codes of Tech Workers, Book Talk with Robert Dorschel

[Rafael Do Nascimento Grohmann]

Hi AoIR,

DigiLabour invites you to this online book talk with Robert Dorschel (University of Cambridge) on The Social Codes of Tech Workers: Class Identity in Digital Capitalism, published by MIT Press.

It will take place on February 5, 9am ET, on DigiLabour YouTube Channel. Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5j_bpnzKIQ
After the talk, there will be two discussants: Helena Wright (University of Toronto) and Kenzo Seto (Yale University)

Description
Digital technologies shape nearly every aspect of our lives. Yet little attention has been paid to the tech workers who design and program these technologies. Instead, the spotlight often falls on two extremes: the elite class of tech entrepreneurs and the precarious digital proletariat of gig and crowd workers. This narrow focus has left a critical gap in understanding the middle-class professionals operating behind the scenes of digital capitalism. Drawing on over 50 original interviews and discourse analytical research conducted in the US and Germany, The Social Codes of Tech Workers takes readers deep into their hearts and minds. Robert Dorschel demonstrates how tech workers’ subjectivity is structured by a return of social critique, hybrid professional roles, and distinctive lifestyles. The book identifies tech workers as a contradictory class formation, oscillating between a spirit of emancipation and yet another spirit of capitalism. This work will appeal to scholars across disciplines concerned with digital labor, identity, and class, as well as to the broader public interested in the culture of the tech industry and the evolving future of work.

You can read the book in open access here: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262553537/the-social-codes-of-tech-workers/

best,

Rafael



--

dr. Rafael Grohmann

Assistant Professor of Media Studies

Department of Arts, Culture and Media<https://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/acm/rafael-grohmann>

Faculty of Information<https://ischool.utoronto.ca/profile/rafael-grohmann/>

University of Toronto

Leader, DigiLabour<https://digilabour.com.br/>
Research Associate, University of Oxford<https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/people/profiles/rafael-grohmann/>

Founding Editor, Platforms & Society<https://journals.sagepub.com/home/PNS>

Principal Investigator, Worker-Owned Intersectional Platforms (WOIP)<https://digilabour.com.br/worker-owned-intersectional-platforms-woip/>

Co-Lead, Creative Labour and Critical Futures (CLCF)<https://criticaldigitalmethods.ca/creative-labour-critical-futures/>

Researcher, AI Policy Observatory for the World of Work<https://www.essex.ac.uk/research-projects/ai-policy-observatory-for-the-world-of-work>
Senior Fellow, Massey College<https://www.masseycollege.ca/>

Faculty Affiliate, Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society<https://srinstitute.utoronto.ca/>  <https://srinstitute.utoronto.ca/>