Former Scientific Staff:
PhD researcher in Labour Geography from 2018 to 2023

PhD project:
Living the Platform Economy: Exploring Digital Labour Geographies by Doing Autoethnographic Research

This PhD thesis studies how working in the place-based platform economy (re)shapes the working
and lived realities of workers: how platforms shape workers’ experiences of the onboarding process, how platform workers in the care sector experience socio-spatial practices that are created by the platforms, and how platform work shapes the spatio-temporal rhythms of reproduction in the lives of workers. On a theoretical and conceptual level this thesis builds on feminist labour geography. Methodologically I adopt the method of autoethnography. The data is derived from fieldwork notes that I collected while working as a platform worker. 
The analysis reveals different aspects of the ways in which platforms maintain a powerful position
to (re)shape platform workers’ working and lived realities. First, I argue that especially at the be-
ginning of a platform worker’s career, access to gigs is characterised by myriad difficulties and
provokes a wide range of emotions, for instance feelings of insecurity and self-doubt that arise
from the difficulty of accessing gigs. Secondly, I show how platforms wield enormous power to
shape the daily lives of a growing number of platform workers in today’s cities. Workers must
respond immediately when a gig offer arrives, and the platform exercises subtle control (such as
phone calls) whenever that expectation is not met. Workers are forced to navigate urban spaces at
the rhythms demanded by the platforms. Thirdly, I argue that the platforms’ dictated rhythms have
a major impact on reproductive rhythms of platform workers: they encourage a fragmentation of
the working day into several units of paid and unpaid working time. Overall, platform
workers experience insecurities, an unpredictability of everyday life, the pressure to be constantly
available, and a deficit of recreation and social exchange.

Publications:
Keller Marisol & Stingl Isabella (forthcoming). Machtvolle Rhythmen: Zum Einfluss digitaler Arbeitsvermittlungsplattformen auf die Krisen und Zeit-Räume der sozialen Reproduktion. In: López Tatiana, Premchander Saumya, Douch Michaela, Engelhardt Anne and Wenner Miriam (Hrsg.): Geographien der Arbeit. Neue Perspektiven aus Räumen der Re/Produktion. Cham: Springer Nature.

Keller, Marisol (2023). Getting the first gig: Exploring the affective relations of accessing platform
labour. In: Digital Society and Geography, 5, 1-9. DOI

Keller, Marisol (2022). „When Clean Angels Calls, I Run“: Working Conditions of a Gigified Care-Worker.
In: Bauriedl, Sybille; Strüver, Anke (Eds.). Platformization of Urban Life: Towards a Technocapitalist Transformation of European Cities. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 135-148. DOI

Schwiter, Karin; Nentwich, Julia; Keller, Marisol (2021). Male privilege revisited: how men in fema-
le‐dominated occupations notice and actively reframe privilege. Gender, Work and Organization,
28(6): 2199-2215. DOI

Keller, Marisol (2021). „Du bist ein Mann, du hast schon bessere Chancen.“ Wie junge Männer Privi-
legierung in geschlechtsuntypischen Berufen verhandeln. In: AG Transformation von Männlichkeiten;
Baumgarten, Diana; Luterbach, Matthias; Peitz, Martina; Rabhi-Sidler, Sarah; Stiehler, Steve; Studer,
Tobias; Thym, Anika (Hrsg.). Zeitdiagnose Männlichkeiten Schweiz. Zürich: Seismo, 175-195. DOI

Keller, Marisol; Schwiter, Karin (2021). Unsichtbar in der Gig Economy: Feministische Perspektiven und autoethnographische Methoden zur Erforschung der Gigifizierung von Care-Arbeit. In: Feministisches Geo-Rundmail, 85:13-16. DOI

Schwiter, Karin; Keller, Marisol (2020). Die digitale Plattform als Chefin: Arbeiten für die Gig-Economy.
Frauenfragen, 42(1):88-91. DOI

Keller, Marisol (2020). «Ohne die App geht gar nichts»: Aus dem Alltag einer Batmaid-Mitarbeiterin.
Frauenfragen, 42(1):92-94. DOI

Bauer, Itta; Keller, Marisol (2018). „Opening up spaces for thought“: Konstruktiver Dialog zwischen
Geographie und Geographiedidaktik am Beispiel Kinder- und Jugendgeographien. In: OpenSpaces. Zeitschrift für Didaktiken der Geographie. DOI