# Research Experience

Research background and ongoing projects.

## Timeline

- **July 2019 to July 2021:** Junior Research Fellow, Jawaharlal Nehru University
- **July 2021 to June 2025:** Senior Research Fellow, Jawaharlal Nehru University
- **November 2025 to present:** Research Associate, Christ (Deemed to be University), Delhi NCR

## PhD Thesis

**Title:** Digital Platforms and Food Delivery Systems in India: A Study of Zomato Workers in Delhi

**Institution:** Centre for Informal Sector and Labour Studies (CISLS), Jawaharlal Nehru University

**Status:** Awarded (2025)

**Supervisor:** Prof. Archana Prasad

**Field Research:** In-depth interviews with Zomato delivery workers (Dec 2023 - Nov 2024, South & South-West Delhi), union leader consultations (AKEU, IFAT, TGPWU, AIGWU), WhatsApp ethnography of worker organizing groups

## Main Research Themes

- Platform capitalism and algorithmic management
- Labour process theory and digital work
- Gig worker resistance and unionization
- Platform alternatives and community-governed marketplaces
- AI, automation, and the future of work
- Informality, precarity, and the Global South

## Current Project Areas

- **ICCSR-funded project:** Sustainability of digital jobs and youth livelihoods in the gig-platform economy (Uttar Pradesh)
- **Ongoing research:** Community-based digital marketplaces and informal alternatives to platform intermediation, with a case focus on online fragrance communities in India

## Research Agenda

### 1. Platform Labour & Algorithmic Management
Empirical research on how platforms control, extract value from, and precariize workers in India—with a focus on food delivery, ride-hailing, and quick commerce.

### 2. Political Economy of Digital Platforms
Theoretical work on platform capitalism, market power, extraction mechanisms, and the structural transformation of labour markets in the Global South.

### 3. Worker Resistance & Platform Alternatives
Research on collective action, unionization, and community-governed digital marketplaces as alternatives to extractive corporate platforms.

### 4. AI, Automation & the Future of Work
Emerging research on how AI agents, generative AI, and algorithmic automation will reshape platform labour, digital work, and employment in India.

## Research Vision

Advancing platform studies as a field—bridging labour scholarship, technology analysis, and policy research on platforms, AI, and digital economies in India and the Global South.

## Canonical HTML Page

- https://abhinavkumar.works/research/