Zwischen Flexibilisierung und Stillstand : raumzeitliche Arrangements und soziale Ungleichheiten in der Auslagerung von Hausarbeit über städtische Lieferdienste

Abstract

In the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, class diagnostic narratives surrounding an emerging servant economy gained traction also in Europe. Especially grocery and food-delivery services in larger cities became emblematic for an urban middle class compensating spatio-temporally unbounded working days and unmet reproductive needs with an externalization of housework and risk. However, a conceptual gap can be observed between the macro-structural analysis of the crises of social reproduction as a result of activating labor market policies and insufficient public service provision and the empirically-observed forms of household-related logistics services. To address this gap, the contribution proposes to focus on the spatio-temporal arrangements of domestic reproductive models and applies this perspective using a case-reconstructive hermeneutic analysis of qualitative interviews. We conclude with a theoretical and research programmatic reflection on how such a geographic perspective on housework can contribute to a transversal labour geography in the field of delivery work.