Politics of Suturing: Infrastructural Labor and Survival in Platform Work

Platform work has become a defining feature of digital economies across the Global South, yet the labor that sustains these economies often extends far beyond the platforms themselves. Drawing on research on digital transaction infrastructures in Southeast Asia and platform workers' experiences of climate vulnerability in the Philippines, this lecture examines the often-unseen forms of labor that enable workers to build and sustain their livelihoods despite limited infrastructure and social protection.

Centering the concept of suturing, the lecture argues that platform workers continually bridge the gaps between what platforms, states, and communities provide and what they need to work and survive. Whether navigating unreliable infrastructure, meeting platform requirements, adapting to changing technologies, or responding to climate-related disruptions, workers rely on households, kinship networks, and community relationships to absorb risk and create stability. By foregrounding this labor of suturing, the lecture offers a new framework for understanding how platform economies are sustained across the Global South and highlights its implications for labor organizing, public policy, and platform governance. Politically, this critical lens can help frame the urgency of movement building and call for complementary obligations of states and platforms.