The time-space-energy nexus in the gig economy: the work and everyday lives of migrant food delivery ‘walkers’ in Venice

The intersection of migrant labour and the gig economy is a field of growing interest. Although there is no comprehensive public data on the topic, current studies show that platform labour in urban gig economies is often carried out by migrants. While uberised work has been quite extensively analysed, the dimensions of everyday life and time are still little studied. This paper aims to fill this gap, looking at the convergence of migrant labour, the gig economy, everyday life, and time. The authors present a time-space-energy nexus to illustrate the constant assembling of working and non-working times by workers and the potential tensions arising from the algorithmic managerial model of work. Specific attention is given to how migrant couriers organise the times and spaces of their everyday lives within platform-mediated food delivery in Venice. To explore this topic, a qualitative-ethnographic investigation was carried out in the historic centre of Venice from January to June 2022. This article highlights the features and tendencies of the food delivery sector in Venice, in order to show how the particular forms that migrant worker/runners’ living and working conditions take contradict the supposed flexibility proposed by digital platforms.