Does digital tech work for us?

The relationship between digital technology and society should benefit everyone, and be accessible to all.

What about equality?

This question is central to our research at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy, as we examine the future of work. 

We believe that the relationship between digital technology and society should benefit everyone, and be accessible to all.

Therefore, we are focusing the conversation on the future of work to consider the meaning work brings to people’s lives, and the significance for democracy when it is taken away.

We are examining access and care, in relation to the rise of the gig economy with its attendant insecurities, work patterns and ‘management by algorithm’. 

We are also exploring the democratic implications of technologies which eliminate rather than create jobs.

Our approach to the future of work at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy is interwoven with many related critical perspectives. 

Leading the work initiative, Research Associate Louise Hickman will draw upon her experience using an analytic lens of feminist labour to generate questions central to the futurity of work from the vantage point of access and care. 

Some of these questions include: 

-How can we imagine the role of work differently? 

-What is the long-term impact of the gig economy on work outside and inside the home? 

-What is the familial cost of on-demand labour? 

-What is the physical cost of burnout on the job? 

Louise will draw on research relating to access work, and open questions around care work, to find new scales of engagement from within HCI research in the UK and beyond. 

Working with these new scales – to explore new perspectives and collaborations – the Centre will introduce a new lab space early next year tasked with focusing on the theme of this year’s discussion: “Work Elsewhere”.

Find out more about our Work initiative