Humanizing the posthuman: Digital labour,food delivery,and openings for the new human during the pandemic

Abstract

Posthuman is a social condition of humans losing control, especially to technological forces, and a cultural framing beyond Enlightenment modernity. Building on the posthuman critique, this article examines digital labour and food delivery platforms during Covid-19 in Asian contexts. The main argument is that, while reinforcing inequalities through algorithm-based discrimination and control, the pandemic also creates openings for progressive change towards the humanizing of the posthuman, through human–non-human assemblage as well as ‘sticky labour’. As such, Covid-19 is more than a crisis that signifies the end of the ‘old normal’. It is, more importantly, another moment when existential crisis triggers innovation in working-class network society, leading to novel discourses, practices, and networks. How and why did this happen? What are the implications for pandemic-era cultural shaping of the digital? These questions will be discussed.