Doha, Qatar: Northwestern University in Qatar (NU-Q) will host communications scholar Cheryll Soriano for the fourth annual NU-Q Lecture on the Global South. titled “Politics of Suturing: Infrastructural Labour and Survival in Platform Work,” her lecture will explore the experiences of workers navigating increasingly platform-mediated economies, with particular attention to the Philippines and other communities in the Global South.
Soriano will also lead a workshop for NU-Q faculty and #IAS_NUQ Global Postdoctoral Scholars on researching and writing about digital platforms and platform labour from perspectives rooted in the Global South, followed by a mentoring lunch with undergraduate fellows.
A scholar of communications and new media, Soriano studies how digital platforms are reshaping labour, livelihoods and everyday economic practices. Her research brings together questions of technology, labour, and development, offering insight into how digital economies affect workers beyond the dominant narratives of the Global North. As Principal Investigator for Fairwork Philippines, an international research network that evaluates gig platforms on issues including fair pay, fair conditions, fair contracts, fair management, and fair representation, Soriano has examined the working conditions created by platforms such as Grab, Foodpanda and Upwork.
Soriano’s work has introduced the concept of “sachet capitalism” to describe the relationship between digital labour and the Philippines’ familiar sachet economy. Drawing a connection between the country’s widespread use of affordable, single-use packets and the rise of digital micro-transactions, she examines how platform economies make gig work accessible while enabling digital and financial technology companies to extract value from everyday informal labour.
