Date:

Dec 9, 2022 

Time: 

10 am - 12m EST

Location: Microsoft Teams https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_ZjcwOGI1NmUtNmQyNy00MGQ5LWFiMWEtY2Y4NDk3ZmM1NzBm%40thread.v2/0?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%22482198bb-ae7b-4b25-8b7a-6d7f32faa083%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%2202aa00cd-f13d-40ec-aba9-e2910c0cc37d%22%7d

Committee:

Carl DiSalvo, Noura Howell, Christopher Le Dantec

Title:

Death piles, Dead labor and Dead White Man’s Clothes 

A Study Of Platform Labor In US-Based Online Secondhand Markets

Abstract:

This dissertation proposal follows a feminist economics approach to discard studies by focusing on reselling online in the US, particularly in the secondhand fashion markets. Specifically, it studies how resellers are involved in power dynamics where their labor is partially circumscribed by the governance of the platforms and their corporations, but also circumscribed to the financial, material and cultural environments where they are situated. Within the US, these environments are different for resellers of different legal status, abilities, genders, races, classes, and especially, geographical proximity to places of high consumption and high levels of waste. Additionally, platforms and their algorithms, discourses, user interfaces, designs and business models have regulatory and organizational impacts on the work of resellers. However, I take the invitation to see “beyond platform determinism”, understanding the ways in which institutions, individuals and cultures also shape the platforms and how these relationships change over time. I am particularly interested in 1)  understanding how online resellers organize their labor, and how the concept of labor is exceeded in the practice of reselling 2) studying  how resellers adapt and resist the platforms, reacting to changes in platform design and institutional policy and 3) exploring the use of feminist economic lenses to think about alternative futures of online resale, considering local and transnational accountability and promoting relational solidarities.