Lecture | L-PEG Lunch Research Seminar
When algorithmic power implodes: understanding dominance and breakdown of food platforms
- Date
- Friday 9 October 2026
- Time
- Explanation
- All are welcome, however please register in advance at l-peg@hum.leidenuniv.nl to receive a copy of the paper and lunch
- Address
-
Herta Mohr
Witte Singel 27A
2311 BG Leiden - Room
- 0.24
Abstract
This paper examines how the algorithmic power exercised on digital platforms breaks down from within. Instead of considering platform governance and resistance as opposing forces, we explore their interplay in the context of food delivery platforms. Building on Everyday international political economy (E-IPE) and Foucaultian scholarship, we employ the concept of the algorithmic panopticon (or algoptic power) to understand how digital control is woven into labour practices through decentralised automated networks. Based on interviews and fieldwork with delivery riders and other actors in Dutch major cities, we show how platforms like Uber Eats and Thuisbezorgd engage in algoptic power that controls workers, but also create the very conditions of platform inefficiency and pushback. Empirically, we discern three dimensions of algoptic power: (1) dominance exerted through regulations, apps and affectivity; (2) the instability of algoptic boundaries as expressed through labour and positionalities; and (3) pushback through resistance and micro-collapse. Finally, we reflect on these empirical dynamics and their implications for understanding the mundane yet violent modes of algoptic rule, which breaks down under the weight of its own techno-capitalist phantasy of control.
