Sharing Economy Justice: Designing Socio-Technological Solutions through Community-Based Participatory Action Research

Overview: Prior research identified numerous opportunities and challenges posed by the sharing economy for the development of low-wealth communities. This presentation describes a community-based participatory action research project that engages community assets in smartphone app development aimed at maximizing opportunities and minimizing risks in this sector to promote economic justice.Proposal text: Technology creates opportunities for some and challenges for others. Current technological and social transformations mirror the socioeconomic upheaval initiated by industrialization and urbanization that led to the emergence of the social work profession. Sharing Economy (SE) platforms offer the latest example of a technology with the power to enhance or reduce economic justice and social work needs to intervene to promote justice (Goldkind & McNutt, 2019).

SE tools use Peer-to-Peer coordination to share access to underutilized assets and resources (Martin, 2016). While well-known entities like Uber, Lyft, and AirBnB come to mind first, thousands of platforms connect people to other services including dog walking (Wag) and home maintenance and upkeep (Task Rabbit). Numerous factors impede the realization of SE benefits. Socio-spatial inequalities prevent some communities from fully engaging in these platforms (Roelfsen, 2018; Xu & Huang, 2019). Exploitation occurs through gentrification (Wachsmuth & Weisler, 2018) or commodification of community culture (Tornberg & Chiappini, 2020). Platforms also have negative social impacts such as social capital erosion (Curtis, Singh, Mont, & Kessler, 2020; Zmyslony, Leszczynski, Waligora, & Alejziak, 2020). For individual workers, a lack of health benefits and uncertainty accompany independent work opportunities (Peticca-Harris, deGama, & Ravishankar, 2020; Hong, Bauer, Lee, & Granados, 2020). Discrimination also poses a pervasive problem (Edelman, Luca, & Svirsky, 2017; Moody, Middleton, & Zhao, 2019) .

Methods

This presentation describes an ongoing project that is developing socio-technical solutions to SE inequalities. It includes an overview of the community planning and engagement model developed, findings from 13 in-depth interviews with community stakeholders, and a preliminary vision for change developed from the interviews. The overall project expands the Participatory Design Model used in internet and computer technology development to include elements of Community Asset-mapping and Community-Based Participatory Action Research (PAR) (Israel et al, 1996; Kretzman & McKnight, 1994; Pfeffers et al, 2007). Researchers identified potential community partners and asked them to envision potential ways that sharing economy platforms could benefit the community, particularly the most marginalized residents. Interviews attempted to spark the creative energy of these community assets to design socio-technical solutions to SE platform problems.

Results

Results presented include a graphic overview of the planning model developed, the potential solutions suggested by respondents, and the Vision for change 1.0 developed through this process. Interviews revealed a lack of knowledge about how SE platforms work, how to maximize benefit, and how to overcome challenges. Community stakeholders proposed both technological and social solutions to the deficits they saw. This included knowledge and skill-building activities for potential workers, assisting local charitable organizations to meet client needs for food, transportations, respite, and shelter, and providing information about how to maximize benefits realized from platform use.

Conclusions
Prior research identified numerous opportunities and challenges posed by the sharing economy for the development of low wealth communities. Clearly, the most disadvantaged members of our community need substantial assistance in order to benefit from SE platform engagement. The Vision for Change 1.0 framework provides a model for developing socio-technical solutions in this community and beyond.