This book provides a wider understanding of the geographies of the platform economy, focusing on the critical perspectives that have emerged on this new economic and digital context. Technological development, particularly the emergence of big data in combination with platforms, additive manufacturing, advanced robotics, machine learning and the internet of things, has created conditions for the appearance of a new economic context predominantly based on new forms of services. This new economic context has been described as the platform economy or platform capitalism. Other designations have also appeared to describe particular consequences of this new phenomena, such as the gig economy or the sharing economy.
There is a significant diversity of scientific fields that are studying topics related to the platform economy. Several studies have emerged from different fields, including, but not limited to, geography, economy, sociology, information science, management, marketing, or the humanities. However, geography has become an important field to understand the platform economy given its critical position over the economic, cultural, and social issues that stem from this new economic context. The purpose of this book is to approach these discussions and offer a critical view of the platform economy from the perspective of geography, stemming from the different subfields of the discipline and not restricted to what has been referred to as Digital Geography.
This book will appeal to scholars, undergraduate and postgraduate students in the social sciences. It will be particularly relevant to those with research interests in digital geographies and economic geography, economics and business.
Mário Vale holds a PhD in Human Geography from the University of Lisbon, Portugal. He is currently Professor at the Institute of Geography and Spatial Planning (IGOT), University of Lisbon and researcher at the Centre of Geographical Studies (CEG). He was Visiting Research Fellow at CURDS (Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies), at the University of Newcastle in 2006 and a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the Department of Geography at UCLA (University of California Los Angeles) in 2013. He was Director of the Centre of Geographical Studies (2014-2020), Currently, he is Director of the PhD Programme in Geography at IGOT-ULisboa.He has been working on urban and regional economic change, especially in the European periphery. His research has been supported by several research projects of national and international (EU framework programmes, ESPON, EEA Grants, and by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT). He has published in various international and national journals such as the Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, European Urban and Regional Studies, European Planning Studies, Geoforum, Regional Studies, and Territory, Politics, Governance, and Finisterra.
Daniela Ferreira studies the digital platforms and their economic role to the platform economy through cocreation proccesses and enterpreneurial ecosystems. She also studies the new forms of digital divides generated by digital platforms. Daniela holds an PhD (2022) in Geography by the Universidade de Lisboa (Institute of Geography and Spatial Planning). His doctoral research was funded by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia. Daniela has collaborated in several internationally (ESPON) and nationally (FCT) funded research projects, such as METRO, UrBio, and Phoenix. Daniela Ferreira's research has been published in international geography and social science journals such as Geoforum, Area, Geographical Review, ISPRS International Journalof Geo-Information, or Fennia - International Journal of Geography.
Nuno Rodrigues is a PhD student in Human Geography at the Institute of Geography and Spatial Planning of the University of Lisbon. He is an Associated Researcher at DINÂMIA'CET-IUL, and an Associate Researcher at the Centre for Geographical Studies. His research focuses on the processes of digital transformation of urban space, with emphasis on the area of Smart Cities and Platform Labour.
