Digital Labor as migrant labor: Toward an understanding of digital labor from below

Focusing on the often-overlooked experiences of migrant workers, this reflective chapter reconsiders digital labor from below, guided by the following research question: What are the everyday subject positions of migrant workers engaged in digital labor, and under what circumstances—when, where, how, and why—do they experience empowerment or disempowerment? To explore this question, this chapter is structured as follows: first, it reviews the state of the art and proposes a paradigm shift calling upon researchers to move beyond top-down state-centric or corporate accounts to reconsider digital labor from below, drawing on insights from media, migration, and gender studies. Next, it introduces the concepts of infrastructure, practices, imaginaries, and affect/emotions as analytical lenses for understanding digital labor from the perspective of migrant workers. Finally, it examines the similarities and differences in the daily experiences of diverse groups of migrant workers, including refugee, undocumented, internal migrants, and digital nomad women.