This paper explores the spatial configuration patterns of riders or delivery drivers in the city of Seville, Spain, through a multidimensional analysis that simultaneously considers the demarcation of territories, the production of places, the articulation of scales, and the construction of networks. For this purpose, data from a qualitative study have been used, based on participant observation exercises, in-depth interviews, and participatory mapping. The results show that, despite the digital mediation of platforms, riders play an active role in the appropriation, delimitation, and signification of urban spaces. The city, as a workplace, is the subject of dispute regarding the forms of territorialisation of the platform companies and those projected by the riders as workers in the sector.
AnwarMohammad AmirGrahamMark. 2020. “Hidden Transcripts of the Gig Economy: Labour Agency and the New Art of Resistance Among African Gig Workers.” Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space52, no. (7): 1269–91.
3.
BaldryChrisBainPeterTaylorPhil. 1998. “Bright Satanic Offices’: Intensification, Control and Team Taylorism.” In Workplaces of the Future, edited by ThompsonPaulWarhurstChris, 163–83. MacMillan.
4.
BaldryChrisBarnesAlison.2012. “The Open-Plan Academy: Space, Control and the Undermining of Professional Identity.” Work, Employment and Society26, no. (2): 228–45.
5.
BarnesAlison. 2007. “The Construction of Control: The Physical Environment and The Development of Resistance and Accommodation Within Call Centres.” New Technology, Work and Employment22, no. (3): 246–59.
6.
BessaIouliaJoyceSimonNeumannDenisStuartMarkTrappmannVeraUmneyCharles. 2022. A Global Analysis of Worker Protest in Digital Labour Platforms. ILO.
7.
BilslandKarenCumbersAndrew. 2018. “Managerial Control and the Limits to Employee Participation in Retail Work Spaces.” New Technology, Work and Employment33, no. (2): 130–48.
8.
BonifacioFrancesco. 2021. “Encountering Algorithms in the Urban Space: A Matter of Knowledge. An Enactive Ethnography of Riders’ work.” Mediální studia15, no. (2): 85–103.
9.
BüscherMonika. 2014. “Nomadic Work: Romance and reality. A response to Barbara Czarniawska’s ‘Nomadic Work as Life-Story Plot’.” Computer Supported Cooperative Work23: 223–38.
10.
CantCallum. 2020. Riding for Deliveroo: Resistance in the New Economy. Polity.
11.
ChenJulie Yujie. 2017. “Thrown Under the Bus and Outrunning It! The Logic of Didi and Taxi Drivers’ Labour and Activism in the on-Demand Economy.” New Media & Society20, no. (8): 2691–711. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444817729149
12.
CousinsKarleneRobeyDaniel. 2015. “Managing Work–Life Boundaries With Mobile Technologies: An Interpretative Study of Mobile Work Practices.” Information Technology and People28, no. (1): 34–71.
13.
De los Santos SesetaEnrique. 2022. “Los Riders, la paz que no llega al sector.” El Derecho, Lefebvre.
14.
DizCarlosCasas-CortésMaribel.2025. “On Delivery Waiting: The Entanglement of Gig and Border Temporalities in Platform Cities.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space43, no. (3): 484–504.
15.
EkinsmythCarol. 2011. “Challenging the Boundaries of Entrepreneurship: The Spatialities and Practices of UK ‘mumpreneurs’.” Geoforum42, no. (1): 104–14.
16.
FernàndezAinaSoliña BarreiroMaría. 2020. “The Algorithm Is Not My Boss Anymore: Technological Appropriation and (New) Media Strategies in Riders x Derechos and Mensakas.” Revista Contracampo39, no. (1): 65–83. https://doi.org/10.22409/contracampo.v39i1.38404
17.
FioravantiLívia Maschio. 2023. “Urban Space and Digital Platforms: Commuting Journeys and Working Conditions of Bicycle Delivery Workers in the Metropolis of São Paulo.” Geousp27, no. (2): e-201427.
18.
FreyBronwyn. 2020. “Platform Labor and In/Formality: Organization among Motorcycle Taxi Drivers in Bandung, Indonesia.” Anthropology of Work Review41, no. (1): 36–49. https://doi.org/10.1111/awr.12187
19.
FreyBronwyn. 2022. “Uneven Mobilities: The Everyday Management of App-Based Delivery Work in Germany.” Mobilities17, no. (5): 695–710. https://doi.org/10.1080/17450101.2022.2114842
20.
Garcés H.Alejandro. 2006. “Configuraciones Espaciales de Lo Inmigrante: Usos y Apropiaciones de La Ciudad.” Papeles Del CEIC (20): 1–34.
21.
GibbingsSheri LynnFreyBronwynBarkerJoshua. 2022. “New Frontiers in the Platform Economy: Place, Sociality, and the Embeddedness of Platform Mobilities.” Mobilities17, no. (5): 633–44. https://doi.org/:10.1080/17450101.2022.2128691
22.
GoodsCalebVeenAlexBarrattTom. 2019. “‘Is Your Gig Any Good?’ Analysing Job Quality in the Australian Platform-Based Food-Delivery Sector.” Journal of Industrial Relations61, no. (4): 502–27. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022185618817069
23.
GrahamMarkHjorthIsisLehdonvirtaVili. 2017. “Digital Labour and Development: Impacts of Global Digital Labour Platforms and the Gig Economy on Worker Livelihoods.” Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research23, no. (2): 135–62. https://doi.org/10.1177/1024258916687250
24.
GriesbachKatleenReichAdamElliott-NegriLukeMilkman.Ruth2019. “Algorithmic Control in Platform Food Delivery Work.” Socius5: 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1177/2378023119870041
25.
HalfordSusan. 2004. “Towards a Sociology of Organizational Space.” Sociological Research Online9, no. (1): 13–28.
26.
HarveyDavid. 1982. The Limits to Capital. Blackwell.
27.
HarveyDavid. 1989. The Urban Experience. Blackwell.
28.
HeilandHeiner. 2021. “Controlling Space, Controlling Labour? Contested Space in Food Delivery Gig Work.” New Technology Work & Employment36, no. (1): 1–16.
29.
HerodAndrew. 1997. “From a Geography of Labor to a Labor Geography: Labor”s Spatial Fix and the Geography of Capitalism.” Antipode29, no. (1): 1–31.
30.
HerodAndrew. 1998. “The Spatiality of Labor Unionism: A Review Essay.” In Organizing the Landscape: Geographical Perspectives on Labor Unionism, 1–36, edited by HerodAndrew. University of Minnesota Press.
31.
HerodAndrew. 2001. Labor Geographies: Workers and the Landscapes of Capitalism. Guilford Press.
32.
HerodAndrew. 2009. Geographies of Globalization: A Critical Introduction. Wiley-Blackwell.
33.
HislopDonaldAxtellCaroly. 2007. “The Neglect of Spatial Mobility in Contemporary Studies of Work: The Case of Telework.” New Technology, Work and Employment22, no. (1): 34–51.
34.
HislopDonaldAxtellCaroly.2009. “To Infinity and Beyond? Workspace and the Multi-Location Worker.” New Technology, Work and Employment24, no. (1): 60–75.
35.
IazzolinoGianlucaVaresioAmarilli. 2023. “Gaming the System: Tactical Workarounds and the Production of Antagonistic Subjectivities among Migrant Platform Workers in Italy.” Antipode55, no. (3): 877–96. https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12917
36.
JantaHaniaLadkinAdele. 2024. “The Labour Consequences of Covid-19: Migrant Workers in Tourism and Hospitality.” Tourism Review79, no. (1): 266–70. https://doi.org/10.1108/TR-02-2023-0064
37.
JessopBobBrennerNeilJonesMartin. 2008. “Theorizing Sociospatial Relations.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space26, no. (3): 389–401. https://doi.org/10.1068/d9107
38.
Jordhus-LierDavidUnderthunAndersZampoukosKristina. 2019. ““Changing Workplace Geographies: Restructuring Warehouse Employment in the Oslo Region.” Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space51, no. (1): 69–90.
39.
KenneyMartinZysmanJohn. 2016. “The Rise of the Platform Economy.” Issues in Science and Technology32, no. (3): 61–9.
40.
KusenbachMargarethe. 2003. “Street Phenomenology: The Go-Along as Ethnographic Research Tool.” Ethnography4, no. (3): 455–85. https://doi.org/10.1177/146613810343007
41.
LefebvreHenri. 1991. The Production of Space. Blackwell.
42.
LongarteMarta. 2022. “Guía básica para autónomos extranjeros en España.” TaxScouts.
43.
MacíasJavier. 2019. “Así Es Lagoh, El Centro Comercial Más Grande de Andalucía: Cómo Llegar, Los 135 Locales…” ABC, September20.
44.
NewlandsGemma. 2021. “Algorithmic Surveillance in the Gig Economy: The Organization of Work through Lefebvrian Conceived Space.” Organization Studies42, no. (5): 719–37. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840620937900
45.
OldenburgRamonBrissettDennis. 1982. “The Third Place.” Qualitative Sociology5: 265–84.
46.
QadriRidaD’IgnazioCatherine. 2022. “Seeing Like a Driver: How Workers Repair, Resist, and Reinforce the Platform’s Algorithmic Visions.” Big Data & Society9, no. (2): 1–17.
47.
ReuschkeDarjaEkinsmythCarol. 2021. “New Spatialities of Work in the City.” Urban Studies58, no. (11): 2177–87.
48.
RocaBeltrán. 2020. “Socio-Spatial Strategies of Worker Centres: An Ethnography of Alt-Labour in NYC.” Antipode52: 1196–215.
49.
RosenblatAlex. 2018. Uberland: How Algorithms Are Rewriting the Rules of Work. University of California Press.
50.
RosenblatAlexStarkLuke. 2016. “Algorithmic Labor and Information Asymmetries: A Case Study of Uber”s Drivers.” International Journal of Communication10: 3758–84.
51.
ShapiroAaron. 2018. “Between Autonomy and Control: Strategies of Arbitrage in the“On-Demand” Economy.” New Media & Society20, no. (8): 2954–71. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444817738236
52.
ShearmurRichard. 2021. “Conceptualising and Measuring the Location of Work: Work Location as a Probability Space.” Urban Studies58, no. (11): 2188–206.
53.
SrnicekNick. 2017. Platform Capitalism. Theory Redux. Polity.
54.
StewartAndrewStanfordJim. 2017. “Regulating Work in the Gig Economy: What Are the Options?” The Economic and Labour Relations Review28, no. (3): 420–37. https://doi.org/10.1177/1035304617722461
55.
StoreyDavid. 2024. Territories: The Claiming of Space. 3rd ed. Routledge.
56.
StraussKendra. 2020. “Labour Geography II: Being, Knowledge and Agency.” Progress in Human Geography44, no. (1): 150–59. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132518803420
57.
ThompsonPaulSmithChris. 2009. “Labour Power and Labour Process: Contesting the Marginality of the Sociology of Work.” Sociology43, no. (5): 913–30.
58.
TiconaJuliaMateescuAlexandraRosenblatAlex. 2018. Beyond Disruption: How Tech Shapes Labor across Domestic Work and Ridehailing. Data & Society Research Institute.
59.
UrryJohn. 2000. Sociology Beyond Societies. Mobilities for the Twenty-First Century. Routledge.
60.
Van DoornNielsVijayDarsana. 2021. “Gig Work as Migrant Work: The Platformization of Migration Infrastructure.” Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space56, no. (4): 1129–49. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X211065049
61.
VartiainenMattiHyrkkänenUrsula. 2010.”Changing Requirements and Mental Workload Factors in Mobile Multi-Locational Work.” New Technology, Work and Employment25, no. (2): 117–35.
62.
VeenAlexBarrattTomGoodsCaleb. 2020. “Platform-Capital’s ‘App-etite’ for Control: A Labour Process Analysis of Food-Delivery Work in Australia.” Work, Employment and Society34, no. (3): 388–406. https://doi.org/10.1177/0950017019836911
63.
WeidenstedtLindaGeissingerAndreaLeickBirgitNazeerNabeel. 2023.”Betwixt and Between: Triple Liminality and Liminal Agency in the Swedish Gig Economy.” Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space56, no. (4): 1280–97.
64.
WideraJosh. 2025. “Aesthetics as Sensory Experience and the Embodied Practice of Bicycle Delivery Work.” In Aesthetics and the City, edited by BlakeyJoeBarronAmy, 55–72. Routledge.
65.
WoodcockJamieGrahamMark. 2020. The Gig Economy: A Critical Introduction. 1st ed. Polity.
66.
YuZizhengTreréEmilianoBoniniTiziano. 2022. “The Emergence of Algorithmic Solidarity: Unveiling Mutual Aid Practices and Resistance among Chinese Delivery Workers.” Media International Australia183, no. (1):107–23. https://doi.org/10.1177/1329878X221074793
67.
ZhengYingqinWuPhilip Fei. 2022. “Producing Speed on Demand: Reconfiguration of Space and Time in Food Delivery Platform Work.” Information Systems Journal32, no. (5): 973–1004.
