Theorising and analysing digital labour: from global value chains to modes of production

This paper considers the following question—where do computers, laptops and mobile phones come from and who produced them? Specific cases of digital labour are examined—the extraction of minerals in African mines under slave-like conditions; ICT manufacturing and assemblage in China (Foxconn); software engineering in India; call centre service work; software engineering at Google within Silicon Valley; and the digital labour of internet prosumers/users. Empirical data and empirical studies concerning these cases are systematically analysed and theoretically interpreted. The theoretical interpretations are grounded in Marxist political economy. The term ‘global value chain’ is criticised in favour of a complex and multidimensional understanding of Marx’s ‘mode of production’ for the purposes of conceptualizing digital labour. This kind of labour is transnational and involves various modes of production, relations of production and organisational forms (in the context of the productive forces). There is a complex global division of digital labour that connects and articulates various forms of productive forces, exploitation, modes of production, and variations within the dominant capitalist mode of production.

Measuring the cost of resilience

Air traffic management research lacks a framework for modelling the cost of resilience during disturbance. There is no universally accepted metric for cost resilience. The design of such a framework is presented and the modelling to date is reported. The framework allows performance assessment as a function of differential stakeholder uptake of strategic mechanisms designed to mitigate disturbance. Advanced metrics, cost- and non-cost-based, disaggregated by stakeholder sub-types, are described. A new cost resilience metric is proposed and exemplified with early test data.