Masterclass: Digital Platforms and Social Change in Asia – Ethnographic Approaches

This masterclass, presented by the Centre for Communication and Social Change, offers the opportunity to learn about ethnographic methodologies in platform research. Professor Cheryll Ruth R. Soriano from De La Salle University, Philippines will be the keynote presenter, speaking on "Sachet Capital: Platforms, Labour and Everyday Transactions in the Philippines". Associate Professor Adrian Athique and Associate Professor Elske van de Fliert, both co-theme leads in the Centre's theme of Engagement for the SDGs, will give flash presentations on the broader topic, as will Dr Andrea Alarcón, Post Doctoral Fellow in Digital Cultures and Societies at The University of Queensland.

This workshop seeks to generate discussion around some of the practical challenges to conducting ethnographic research projects in platform economies. With a focus upon Asia, we will emphasise cultural considerations and thick context as both an objective and environment for collecting generative data. Experienced researchers will discuss recent fieldwork studies, and engage with early career researchers on practical considerations including sampling, privacy, consent, interaction, bias, risk, data analysis and reflexive practice. 

This masterclass is suitable for HDRs and ECRs interested in learning more about ethnographic methodologies being used to understand social change in digital transition. 

Date: Tuesday 18 November
Time: 1pm - 3.30pm
Venue: Room 208, Joyce Ackroyd Building (37-208)
Bring: Cups and perhaps snacks to share. Tea and coffee will be provided.

The abstract for Professor Soriano's keynote follows and the Centre looks forward to welcoming you.

Abstract: Sachet Capital: Platforms, Labour and Everyday Transactions in the Philippines

This talk examines the cultural economy of everyday micro-transactions in platform labour. It proposes sachet capital as a conceptual lens for understanding the mechanisms through which platform capital expands in Asia (and beyond), drawing from ethnographic research in the Philippines. The analysis builds on enduring sachet logics of “just the right unit,” “just-in-time” exchange, and transactional interdependency that have long organized the cultural economy of the economic margins. It highlights how platforms transform these practices by blurring labour, consumption, and finance into sachetized transactional units that capitalize on informal relations and infrastructures of survival. Sachet capital is a strategy of accumulation attuned to social economies, embedding itself within and restructuring the transactional interdependencies that dominate everyday life. It aims to advance three core arguments: (1) sachet transactions are key sites of capital accumulation, both sustaining and being reshaped by platform labour; (2) labour platformization leverages and legitimizes familiar sachet economies, making gig work culturally legible and materially viable despite precarity; and (3) these socio-technical relations of production are organized through a dynamic tension between care and extraction, embedding workers in systems of support that also deepen dependency. By examining the mutually reinforcing operations of labour platforms and financial super-apps like GCash, it argues that the ambitions of scale in platform capitalism are realized through the facilitation and capitalization of countless micro-exchanges grafted onto situated transactional cultures and precarious livelihoods.