From the “entrepreneur of the self” to the travailleur on black: peripheral rationalities between continuities and transformations of app-based work

Abstract

This article analyzes the transnational precarization of app-based work through a multi-sited ethnography conducted between 2020 and 2023 in Rio de Janeiro and Paris. The aim is to understand how narratives of autonomy, entrepreneurship, and dignity are articulated with distinct regimes of labor (de)regulation. In Brazil, the rejection of the Consolidation of Labor Laws (CLT), synthesized in the expression “CLT never again,” expresses a pragmatic rationality that associates formalization with loss of income and flexibility. In France, sans papiers migrants resort to the marché noir of account rentals as their only way of accessing platforms, configuring a precariousness shaped by illegality. In both contexts, autonomy is claimed as a central value, yet in forms that reinforce the commodification of freedom, the individualization of responsibility, and the transfer of risks to workers. Dialogue with authors such as Abílio, Antunes, Grohmann, Qiu, Rosenblat, Srnicek, and Van Doorn situates these experiences within broader processes of platformization, marked by algorithmic control, structural instability, and the reproduction of class, racial, and territorial inequalities. The comparison between Rio and Paris highlights both continuities, such as the centrality of peripheral and migrant workers in precarious activities, and transformations linked to digitalization and algorithmic opacity. By privileging the voices, practices, and cultural repertoires of delivery workers, the article demonstrates that the rejection of the CLT and the recourse to the marché noir are not merely individual choices, but situated responses to contexts of exclusion and structural precarization.