Abstract
The seminar will explore the diverse experiences of women navigating the growing digital platform economy. It critically examines the narratives of empowerment and inclusion often promoted by state actors and industries, contrasting these with the lived realities of precarity, informality, and discrimination shaped by intersecting inequalities of gender, class, race, and geography. Taking a global perspective, the discussion will consider how digital platforms influence opportunities and risks for women workers, addressing themes such as strategies to navigate unsafe and unequal gig work environments, the impact of weak regulatory frameworks, and the urgency of developing gender-just approaches to platform governance and AI development. This seminar aims to foster dialogue on advancing rights and protections for women in gig work while focusing their knowledge and agency on shaping a more equitable future. The seminar will feature Dr Kaveri Medappa and Natalia Rodriguez Malagon, with moderation by Dr Belen Martinez, who will also share insights on the topic from her thesis, which explored the everyday experiences of women working in the taxi and platform sectors in Malaga, Spain.
Biographies
Dr Belen Martinez is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research (CRESR). She completed a PhD in International Development at the University of Sussex, where her research examined the experiences of women working as drivers in the taxi and platform sectors in Malaga, Spain. Her work explores how women navigate male-dominated workplaces and the implications for gender equality. She has also researched female safety in the on-demand courier sector in Spain.
Dr Kaveri Medappa is a postdoctoral researcher in human geography in the Department for Continuing Education, and a Junior Research Fellow at Kellogg College, University of Oxford. She received her PhD in International Development from the University of Sussex (2018-2022) for her ethnographic study of app-based food delivery workers and cab drivers in Bangalore, India.
Natalia Rodriguez Malagon is a feminist human rights and gender justice specialist at ActionAid UK, focusing on Women’s Economic Justice through feminist policy, research, and advocacy for economic alternatives centred on care and wellbeing. With over nine years of experience, mainly in Colombia, she has worked across governmental and non-governmental organisations at local, national, and international levels, specialising in gender-responsive planning, budgeting, and corporate accountability. You can read a recent report published by Natalia - 'Platforms of precarity: Women's economic rights and the gig economy'.