Book Review: Beyond the Algorithm: Qualitative Insights for gig Work Regulation by Deepa Das Acevedo
| Author | Primož Rataj |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/13882627221092046 |
| Published date | 01 June 2022 |
| Date | 01 June 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
international as well as regional human rights law allow her to look beyond well-covered issues and
to create an abstract three-step assessment that may be claimed to be universally applicable. The
necessary sacrifice of some depth of analysis is occasionally regrettable. Despite the wide array
of sources considered as well as the ambitious layout of her study, Pijnenburg creates a very
well structured and accessible text. And even though the guiding question of the book has a signifi-
cant moral dimension, Pijnenburg manages to retain focus on the legal framework and basis.
Ideally, the book should perhaps be read by policymakers framing cooperative migration control
mechanisms. It is, nonetheless, a very informative and insightful read for anyone dealing with
responsibility and accountability under international law, or with human rights law, migration
law, socio-economic rights, legal theory and other related fields of interest and research.
ORCID iD
Claudia Baumann https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9127-7950
Deepa Das Acevedo (ed.), Beyond the Algorithm: Qualitative Insights for gig Work Regulation, 2021, UK:
Cambridge University Press, 221 pp., ISBN: 978 1 108 48776 4 (hardback).
Reviewed by: PrimožRataj ,University of Ljubljana
DOI: 10.1177/13882627221092046
Beyond the algorithm: Qualitative insights for gig work regulation is a ten-chapter volume addres-
sing one of the most controversial questions of modern society that has been tackled by policy-
makers and scholars, often titled as (technology-facilitated) ‘gig work’. As the authors describe
it, it is the latest iteration of a decades-old pattern of workplace fissuring, where ‘gig companies’
are now striving to control work remotely and to shift risks and costs of service provision onto
workers. In this manner, they evade obligations that are typically imposed on employers, for
instance, by requiring from the worker the procurement of a transportation vehicle and coverage
of insurance and fuel costs in the transportation or delivery sector, and having direct feedback
from consumers about the quality of work.
This timely, creative, and ambitious book sheds a light on the background of work in the gig
economy, and examines how law regulates working conditions in this area. While the volume
deals with the situation in the United States, it is relevant for developments occurring in Europe
as well.
The editor’s background is in legal anthropology, and the first part of the book gathers con-
tributions in sociology, anthropology and law that draw on a range of methodological and ana-
lytical approaches to offer regulatory insights on gig work. Whereas law research oversees
regulatory rules and case law on the rise and scope of gig work regulation and employee/inde-
pendent contractor status, sociology and anthropology dive deeper into the various aspects of
the human experience of this phenomenon, including how these rules affect different groups
of people and their social interactions not only at work but consequently also at home, etc.
Together, they attempt to establish an overview on the framed topic from ‘toptobottom’.The
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