Uninvited Protagonists: The Networked Agency of Venezuelan Platform Data Workers

Data workers use digital platforms to perform on-demand online tasks for technology industries, in a competitive landscape that extends beyond national borders and drives down remunerations. Using a mixed-method approach that combines survey data and in-depth interviews, this article explores the emergence of labour agency among Spanish-speaking data workers in Latin America, with a focus on crisis-stricken Venezuela. Results show that data workers actively develop practices of resilience, reworking, and, to a lesser extent, resistance with support from different segments of their personal networks: strong local ties, mixed ties, and weak online ties. Their diversified networks comprise an informal, albeit largely digitised relational infrastructure that sustains their work and shapes collective action. These findings invite to rethink agency as embedded in workers’ personal networks, shed light on the conditions for mobilisation on platforms, and contribute to the effort of breaking the invisibility of data workers especially in Global South countries.