Driving Gigs in Oman: Women and Techno-Fixes in the Platform Economy

Digital platforms mediating work between customers and service providers have expanded exponentially in the past decade, driving a growing research agenda on the impact of platform capitalism, AI and the gig economy on labour around the world. This paper is interested in understanding the platform economy at the intersection of gender with the political economy of labour. Focusing on the Omani case of a new women’s taxi service (OFemale) through the digital platform OTaxi, it asks how ride-hailing platforms are impacting women’s employment futures. Using rapid ethnography, elite interviews and a survey, the article examines both the launch and expansion of the business alongside the experiences of Omani women as taxi drivers. The article excavates three gendered discourses of freedom, protection and job creation around platform labour and female labour market participation in the region. It argues that digital platforms such as OTaxi offer techno-fixes to fill gaps in the market and respond to the need to generate job opportunities for female citizens in the country. At the same time, women make use of these opportunities and interpret their experience in diverse ways that problematise the neo-liberal promises of innovative technologies, job flexibility and autonomy embodied in platform capitalism

A \u27Ludicrous and Inappropriate\u27 Dinner Guest:: The Character of the Titus Andronicus Fly

This article proposes a new approach to Titus Andronicus\u27s infamous ‘Fly-Killing Incident’ in act 3, scene 2 which prioritizes the role of the segmented fly as a character alongside the dismembered Andronici. Rejecting the critical tendency to read the diminutive figure as a passive emblem for interpreting humanity, this article explores the subjectivity of the fly as an individual with a particular focus on the implications of its murder and dismemberment. Whilst acknowledging its often-flippant critical history, this article asks, ‘What if we took the fly seriously’

Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Free Trade, Tariffs and the US Labour Movement

Donald Trump’s tariff war, which has focused on cars as one of the main targets, has placed unions, and in particular the United Auto Workers (UAW), the main auto industry union in the US, in a complicated strategic position

Reconsidering Power, Interests and Actor Relations in Labour Studies: The Case of the Privatisation in the Port of Hamburg

This article proposes an extension of the Power Resource Approach (PRA) that systematically addresses central criticisms of the original framework. We argue that a comprehensive understanding of labour conflicts in capitalist societies necessitates at least three conceptual elaborations: (1) a relational perspective on labour conflicts and power dynamics; (2) an emphasis on the heterogeneity of (collective) interests and orientations that both enable and constrain collective action; and (3) a reconceptualisation of employers as active counterparts in labour relations, equipped with their own interests, orientations, and power resources. Particular attention is paid to bargaining processes between antagonistic actor groups and to the often contradictory interests and normative orientations that shape action and inform the mobilisation of power resources. This actor-centred perspective aims to contribute to a more differentiated and empirically grounded understanding of labour relations. The analytical potential of the extended framework is illustrated through the empirical case of resistance to port privatisation in Hamburg, Germany

The Simple Truth: Mystical Exercises in Tractarian Syntax

F. H. Bradley argues that any plurality of objects possessing qualities or standing in relations to one another is impossible because it leads to a vicious regress. Bradley’s regress objection continues to draw the attention of some contemporary metaphysicians. I indicate how the problem can be resolved by developing relevant semantic and logical ideas from Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Wittgenstein’s deflationary account of truth, together with his view that propositional signs picture or model possible atomic facts, shows how a proposition that seems to ascribe a quality to an object in fact does not. Guided by the semantic principle that the sense and reference of a proposition are determined by the senses and references of its parts, Wittgenstein adopts a convention for eliminating the identity sign in his logical syntax that allows for a regress-free internal realism about relations consisting of true sentences containing relation symbols along with different names or variables for distinct objects. Finally, in a manner reminiscent of Kant’s antinomies, Wittgenstein’s elucidation of necessity and impossibility in terms of sinnlos logical tautology and contradiction, together with his conception of the world as a limited whole, enables him to resist a prima facie powerful Tractarian reductio that Bradley might present in response to Wittgenstein’s apparent claims of metaphysical necessity

Russell on Generality 1910 to 1918

In Principia Mathematica, Russell thought that there are irreducibly general judgements with their own mode of truth. They are true in virtue of what the elementary judgements they collect together correspond to. In The Philosophy of Logical Atomism, Russell thought that they are true in virtue of general facts. In 1910, general facts are not even considered in order to reject them. In 1918, Russell announces that it cannot be doubted that there are general facts. This raises an intriguing question. What was it that led Russell to drop his 1910 view and drove him to the conclusion that there are general facts? I propose an answer that relies on a core aspect of Russell’s views on which he stayed firm throughout this period and on a preoccupation of his that began well before 1910: theories of truth and the problem of how false judgements are possible. I argue that Russell’s 1910 view failed to account adequately for the falsity of general judgements, while the correspondence theory of truth pushed him to accepting general facts. To round things off I also consider three independent arguments for general facts

The language of pedagogical partnership: A cross-context analysis of student partner and program facilitator perspectives

Pedagogical partnership work continues to proliferate on college and university campuses around the world, and yet the language used in and about this work is still very much evolving. This exploratory study drew on surveys of student partners and program facilitators at institutions across contexts to learn about three related ways language is used: (a) to ensure respectful exchanges between student and faculty/staff partners within partnership programs, (b) to make pedagogical partnership work legible to those on campus not involved in the work, and (c) to communicate with prospective employers and others. Writing as a program facilitator and experienced student partner, we present findings from this study not to generalize or to compare institutional contexts and practices but rather to offer glimpses into the ways that student partners and program facilitators develop and use language to name partnership work that can inform ongoing explorations of this topic

Establishing local sustainability projects that address the UN Sustainability Development Goals

Before increasing global disruptions and uncertainties, it is necessary to prepare students with capabilities to influence change and to nurture their agency. This case study examines a pilot student sustainability leadership initiative run at an English university. It comprises a model which combines student as partners and “living lab” practices. It engaged undergraduates in partnership with academics in projects they co-created to address curriculum and campus challenges, framing these in relation to the UN Sustainability Development Goals. The model, underpinned by constructivist and experiential learning pedagogies, harnesses creativity to nurture action for sustainability. A multi-level evaluation identified the impacts of the experience on students and academics and of the outputs in relation to the university’s education and sustainability strategies. The results demonstrate this student as partner and living lab model to be effective and efficient. It has been adopted as business-as-usual at the university and is transferable. This case study is co-authored by the staff and some of the students involved

Limits of Complementarity: Private Governance and Public Regulation of Labour Standards in Brazil’s Garment Supply Chain

Under what conditions can private compliance and public regulation be complementary within global value chains, resulting in promotion of labor standards? This critical case study examines a retailer-led association that developed a code and social audit mechanism in apparel supply chains in Brazil - the world’s third largest apparel market and fourth largest apparel manufacturer - and its relationship with regulation by public authorities. The authors highlight key undertheorized institutional dimensions of effectiveness in private governance and in public inspection shaping the viability of complementarity, and how weaknesses therein undermined initial prospects for public-private complementarity identified by practitioners and analysts in this code. As institutional flaws kept the code distant from better practices theorized and evident internationally in private labor governance, and the public inspectorate and forced labor enforcement regime declined institutionally, labor standards languished.  Rather that outright displacement of public by private, or an effective coordination through complementarity, the study finds two rivalrous, competitive systems. Important issues are raised for future research about this Brazilian code and key implications are raised regarding the need for a more sophisticated institutional lens to inform efforts to study complementarity as an analytical construct and develop it as a policy construct in the ILO setting