Author Archives: Malcolm Katrak

Malcolm Katrak is a Ph.D. candidate at the Osgoode Hall Law School, York University. He is also an assistant professor (on leave) at the Jindal Global Law School, India, and previously served as a law clerk to Justice (Retd.) S. N. Variava, Former Judge, Supreme Court of India.
A hand-drawn sketch of an online meeting of the Labor Tech Research Network's (LTRN) India chapter, showing participants' virtual personas

Transnational Translations: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue on Platforms and Labor

This article is the third in a series about gig and platform worker unions in India written by members of the Labor Tech Research Network. Read the introduction to the series here, and the second post in the series here. As the landscape of technology-mediated work has evolved rapidly over the years, spanning across diverse geographical contexts, a wide range of academic disciplines, knowledges, and expertise have become relevant for engaging with the technopolitics surrounding it. The multidimensional and dynamic expansion of digital platforms into yet newer industries and sectors, through the use of novel technological and institutional forms, has made interdisciplinary approaches for the critical study of technology and society indispensable for grounding technological innovation in contextual realities. Moreover, intricately entangled global supply chains in the age of hyper-financialized technocapitalism restage labor politics as industry and work are restructured.  (read more...)