On delivery waiting: The entanglement of gig and border temporalities in platform cities

Abstract

The politics of time, and particularly practices of waiting, spring in the narratives of any border crossing. This article draws from the scholarly analysis on migratory temporalities, to shed light upon the temporalities of urban delivery platforms, strongholds of migrant labor. We focus on waiting both as a research object and analytical lens to further comprehend the intersectional precarities at work in the food-delivery sector. What does the border tempos have to do with a delivered meal? Based on ethnographic research conducted in Spain and Chile, we gathered two sets of distinct temporalities coming together: on the one hand, the codified periodization of migratory statuses; on the other, the uncertain timing of speed and still, labor and no/labor of digital gigs. The intersection where the border and delivery chronopolitics come together remains understudied. Drawing on select empirical examples, delivery waiting emerges as a central and ambivalent practice among riders’ everyday lives.