Conversations in video or audio

A circular economy is meant to address environmental concerns by leveraging corporate interests. However, the circularity of the circular economy is by no means automatic. It is instead conscious work by specific actors that links corporate agendas, NGO programmes and e-waste dealers on the ground. In this video conversation, Juli Perczel and Biao Xiang explore how connections among heterogenous actors are made and what its social implications are.

Recorded on 27 July 2021. Juli Perczel is a PhD candidate in Anthropology, University of Manchester, UK.
 

Many western governments outsource and contract migrant-sending and -transit countries into their border enforcement and frontiering projects. What changes does this spell for the world order? As foot soldiers, mobile workforce arguably play a huge role in making this system a possibility. — Julia Morris, Biao Xiang

Erik Forman (co-founder of The Drivers Cooperative) probes a new definition of the company that can fill the void left by the declining of labour unions. The Drivers Cooperative attempts to do just that. The new type of companies need to adopt creative measures such as “sweat equity” and crowdfunding to address bottleneck obstacles, namely the shortage of capital. — Erik Forman, Biao Xiang

Our daily mobility is increasingly mediated by ever more complex socio-techno infrastructure. Technology platform companies are the most visible part of the infrastructure, but are certainly not all. — Erik Forman, Biao Xiang

The monopolistic positions of app-platform giants, such as Uber and Grab, partly lie with their power of engineering new lifestyles and perceptions about social relations. The platform economy is as much an economic project as a cultural one. — Erik Forman, Biao Xiang