Economy, Technology and Society

Agri-food systems in the Global North are experiencing a wave of technological innovation in food production and ways of eating. This book is the first to analyse technological and socio-economic change in leading food sectors and it concludes that despite innovation, the food industry is adapting too slowly to the challenges of climate change.

Drawing on interviews with Amazon workers and original empirical data, this book explores how different working conditions estrange and alienate workers, and how, despite these, workers find ways to organize and express their agency. This is an important analysis of work on the digital shop floor for the scholars of platform economy.

The ‘smart city’ is often promoted as a technology-driven solution to complex urban issues. Drawing on original research conducted in urban African settings, this book provides a much-needed alternative view, exploring how ‘home-grown’ digital disruption, driven and initiated by local actors, upending the mainstream corporate narrative.

This book offers a complete view of the new labour conflicts in the platform economy. Through case studies in advanced economies in Europe and the US and with an original approach that combines social movement studies and industrial relations, it provides a radical interpretation on the changing nature of worker movements in the digital age.

In this pioneering book, David Beer redefines emergent algorithmic technologies as the new systems of knowing. He examines the acute tensions they create and how they are changing what is known and what is knowable.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is everywhere, yet it causes damage to society in ways that can’t be fixed. Calling for the restructuring of AI, Dan McQuillan sets out an anti-fascist approach that replaces exclusions with caring and outlines new mechanisms that support collective freedom.

As outrage over the socially damaging practices of technology companies intensifies, this book asks what it actually means to hold a 'monopoly' in the tech world and offers an in-depth analysis of how these corporate giants are produced, financialized, and regulated.

Social media platforms hold vast amounts of data about our lives. Content from the past is increasingly being presented in the form of ‘memories’. Critically exploring this new form of memory making, this unique book asks how social media are beginning to change the way we remember.

EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. This book is a timely analysis of the growing impact of digital technologies on populism in the US and beyond.

A best-seller in France, this English language edition introduces readers to an alternative perspective on our technological future. Bihouix skilfully goes against the grain to argue that ‘high’ technology will not solve global problems and envisages a different approach to manage our resources and build a more resilient and sustainable society.

Igniting a new field of scholarly inquiry, this pioneering book introduces cybernetic thinking to politics and organizational studies to explore the continuing development of the radical idea of participatory democracy within organizations.

We are all 'glass consumers'. Organisations know so much about us, they can almost see through us. This book takes the debate beyond privacy issues, arguing that we are living in a world in which - more than ever before - our personal information defines our opportunities in life.