Labor-atories of Platform Economies: Critical Platform Studies in/from/with Latin America: The presentation frames how past epistemologies, histories, and political struggles of Latin America can inform critical platform studies. Rather than treating the region as a passive site of technological implementation, it emphasizes how enduring theories of informality and dependency are essential to understanding how platforms are implemented, contested, and reimagined in the region. This means centering Latin American perspectives not merely as sites of study, but as central to the development of epistemologies and theories on digital humanities. The talk frames Latin America as ‘labor-atories’ for platform economies. The region has long served as a testing ground for neoliberal policies, which now continue through the platform economy and the AI context. But it has also been a space of experimentation by the working class. This presentation addresses the power of collective grassroots organising, digital solidarity economies, and the ways in which workers – particularly in Brazil and Argentina – are negotiating digital sovereignty and autonomy from below. Finally, it calls for non-extractive, collaborative research practices that take seriously the knowledge produced by workers, activists, and grassroots organisations. This requires moving beyond traditional policy frameworks and into the terrain of lived experiences in order to understand platform governance from below.
Biography: Rafael Grohmann is an Assistant Professor of Media Studies (Critical Platform Studies) at the University of Toronto. He is research associate at the University of Oxford, founding editor of Platforms & Society journal and leader of DigiLabour initiative. His research focuses on digital labour, AI and work, AI in the cultural sector, workers’ organizing, platform cooperativism and digital solidarity economy, especially in Latin America. He is also a Faculty Affiliate at the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society, a Senior Fellow at Massey College and an Advisory Board Member at the Centre for Culture and Technology. His previous affiliations include Weizenbaum Institute and University of Sao Paulo. Rafael published in academic outlets such as Big Data & Society, New Media & Society, International Journal of Communication, Information, Communication & Society, and Social Media + Society. He is an editorial board member of Communication, Culture and Critique and Big Data & Society.
