Between acceptance and resistance: Conceptualising migrant platform labour agency in Chile
Digital labour platforms are transforming labour markets worldwide, and migrant workers are pivotal in this transformation. Drawing on a qualitative study in Chile, we uncover how Latin American and Caribbean migrants navigate and resist platform labour conditions, considering the algorithmically controlled and surveilled aspects of food delivery platforms, as well as the impact of migration status on their work. We contend that understanding migrant labour agency requires examining both the platforms' socio-technical structures and the host country's migration policies. These policies determine workers' migration status, shape their work experiences, and consequently impact their resistance to precarious labour conditions. We introduce the concept of migrant platform labour agency to illustrate the various forms of resistance migrants employ in navigating the platform labour market. This concept contributes to understanding the nuances in migrants' labour agencies, which range from acceptance to resistance, considering the interplay between the migration policy environment and platforms' socio-technical assemblage.
Racialized Representations of Migrants by the Local Police in Chile
In this article, we explore the racialized construction of migrants by the Carabineros, the Chilean national police. Based on a qualitative case study, we show that the representations of Latin American and Caribbean migrants by members of this institution are racialized and mostly framed on ideas of a historically constructed superiority. Drawing on interviews with police personnel from different units in Santiago, Chile, we show how the historical state racist policies on migration and systemic institutional racism are embedded in the Carabineros’ discourse, who represent the state and law in their everyday interactions with migrants. Historically, this institution continues to be a strongly hierarchical and militarized police force, whose mission has been to defend territorial integrity and the moral, socio-historical, and cultural national identity, as well as to uphold the most important values of the so-called Chilenidad. We argue that the Chilean police frame their racialized representations of Latin American and Caribbean migrants within systemic institutional racism and socio-historical tropes, particularly from racialized, class, and moral perspectives that reproduce anti-immigrant sentiments and illustrate the ways in which migrants have been historically criminalized and treated in everyday life.