Platform and Data Co-Operatives amidst European Pandemic Citizenship

Abstract

Many European pandemic citizens will likely be unemployed during the COVID-19 crisis. This article explores whether it is possible to alter existing data governance extractivist models to incentivize the emergence of platform and data co-operatives to protect European pandemic citizens’ labor and digital rights. As such, this article aims to decipher the rationale behind the proliferation of platform and data co-operatives by responding to how new forms of co-operatives using digital technologies can provide feasible socio-economic alternatives to improve post-COVID-19 working conditions for vulnerable or already empowered pandemic citizens. This article is structured as follows. First, the European “pandemic citizenship” term is described. Second, the rationale of this article is consequently presented. Third, the research question, two hypotheses, and the action research triangulation are described. The deployment of the triangulation methodology based on action research, mixed methods and social innovation reveals the main findings through (i) Delphi study results, (ii) a taxonomy for platform and data co-operative cases, and ultimately, (iii) fieldwork research conducted in Glasgow, Barcelona and Tallinn. This article concludes that co-operatives (platform-based or data-driven), stemming from the potential resilient response of European pandemic citizens, may currently portray a feasible alternative to data governance extractivist models.

Book Review: Smart City Citizenship

“…So far, the urban phenomenon and its sociotechnical controversies have been explicitly surfacing until we have reached this unknown and highly unexpected status of 'the new normal'. We all, Pandemic Citizens (Calzada, 2020b;Craglia et al, 2021), sharing similar fears, uncertainties, and risks, are exposed differently depending on which country we call home and our related living conditions. Actually, this pandemic crisis has been gradually and pervasively fuelling data governance issues, which exposes pandemic citizens' vulnerabilities.…”

Inclusive Smart Cities: Beyond Voluntary Corporate Data Sharing

“…However, the paper is situated among, and related to, a number of related frameworks addressing the multiple types of partnerships between public, private and nongovernmental actors, as well as among citizens and data users themselves, to leverage and share data for positive societal impact. Those relevant literatures have produced a number of data governance models [35][36][37] and labels to refer to data sharing and usage arrangements, including 'data driven social partnerships' [38], 'data collaboratives' [39][40][41][42], 'platform cooperatives' [43][44][45][46][47][48][49], 'data trusts' [50][51][52] and 'data philanthropy' [53][54][55]. The phrase 'data for good' [56] is also used to underline the positive potential of data sharing.…”

“…A number of case studies of individual cities examine in detail alternative data governance schemes that seek with varying degrees of success to democratise digital life [35,36,[57][58][59][60][61][62][63].…”

“…Such initiatives build on arguments to empower citizens and reach 'technological sovereignty' in a datafied world that is political [27,35,[64][65][66][67] by presenting the possibilities of agency from the 'bottom up' [35,36,50,59,62,63,[68][69][70][71][72][73][74], 'good data practices' [75] and 'alternative data governance models' [34,61]. As such, a number of typologies and classifications have been presented in the scholarly and grey literatures to conceptualise the diversity of private data sharing practices [34,37,[76][77][78][79][80][81].…”

Pandemic Citizenship: Will COVID-19 Reinforce Nation-States’ Borders and Liquify Citizens?

“…The social and economic effects of the pandemic are profound and pervasive for an emerging regime of citizenship: 'pandemic citizenship'. 'Pandemic citizenship', therefore, could be described as follows (Calzada, 2020b): the post-COVID-19 era, on the one hand, has dramatically slowed down several mundane routines for citizens such as mobility patterns while, on the other hand, it has exponentially increased demanding new professional pressures, emotional fears, life uncertainties, algorithmic exposure, data privacy concerns, health-related direct risks, and socioeconomic vulnerabilities depending eminently on the material and living conditions shared by a wide range of citizens regardless of their specific geolocalization worldwide (Bratton, 2017;Mathiason, 2008).This current 'pandemic citizenship' emerging regime clearly contrasts with the 'cosmopolitan globalized citizenship' mainstream regime. As such, this 'cosmopolitan globalized citizenship' regime has been hegemonically spreading out over the last decades by leading to a new class of global citizens.…”