Thesis

Title: Valued capital(s) and devalued labour in London’s “Gig Economy” (2021)

Supervisors: Professor Ellen Helsper and Professor Bart Cammaerts

View thesis here

Profile

George Maier is a Fellow at the London School of Economics. He teaches on issues of artificial intelligence, fairness and sustainability for the interdisciplinary LSE100 course. His research addresses (digital) inequalities and has recently focused on the rise of the platform economy, precarious work and debt.

Selected Publications

Conference Talks

• Maier, G (2021) ‘Indebted by Design: Uber Drivers Trapped in London’s Gig Economy by Debt’ Presented at: European Sociological Association 2021, Barcelona, Spain (online due to Covid-19).
• Maier, G (2020) ‘Social Class and Datafied Subject Value in London’s Gig Economy’ Presented at: American Sociological Association 2020, San Francisco, United States of America (online due to Covid-19).
• Maier, G (2020) ‘“I Get on Better with Anglo People”: Racial Discrimination in Guest Acceptance Decision-Making Within London’s AirBnB Host Community’ Presented at: International Association for Media and Communication Research 2020, Tampere, Finland (online due to Covid-19).
• Maier, G; Gilchrist, K (2020) ‘Women Who Host: Gendered Subjectivity Among London’s AirBnB Hosts’ Presented at: Cultural Studies Association, Chicago, The United States of America (online due to Covid-19).
• Maier, G (2019) ‘Labour, Capital and Debt: Theorising the Gig Economy’. Presented at: European Sociological Association 2019, Manchester, United Kingdom.
• Maier, G (2019) ‘Who is Valued? Symbolic Subject Value in the Sharing Economy’. Presented at: International Association for Media and Communication Research 2019, Madrid, Spain.
• Maier, G (2019) ‘Valued or Devalued: Symbolic Subject Value in the Sharing Economy’ Presented at: Cultural Studies Association, New Orleans, The United States of America.
• Maier, G (2019) ‘Making a Living in the Sharing Economy: The Female AirBnB Hosts of London’. Presented at: International Communication Association, Washington DC, The United States of America.
• Maier, G (2019) ‘'Gay Capital’ and the Neoliberal Commodification of Gay Male Personhood’. Presented at: International Communication Association, Washington DC, The United States of America.
• Maier, G (2019) ‘The Female Host and Internal Inequalities Within London's AirBnB Host Community’. Presented at: Gender and Working Lives Symposium, University of Cambridge.
• Maier, G (2018) ‘Power, Class and Digital Markets: A Critique of Digital Inclusion’. Presented at: International Association for Media and Communication Research 2018, Eugene, Oregon, The United States of America.
• Maier, G (2018) ‘Reconceptualising the Sharing Economy for Class Analysis’. Presented at: DigitalCapitalism2018, London, United Kingdom.
• Maier, G (2017) ‘Digital Inclusion: A Critique of Power and Inequality in The Social Construction of the Digital World’. Presented at: BRESTOLON, Lisbon, Portugal.

Book Reviews

• Maier, G (2018) ‘Grant Bollmer, Inhuman Networks: Social Media and the Archaeology of Connection’ International Journal of Communication 12(2018) pp. 3339–3342.
• Maier, G (2017) ‘Book Review: The Contradictions of Capital in the Twenty-First Century: The Piketty Opportunity’ The LSE Review of Books. Subsequently republished online by American Politics and Policy, LSE Business Review and the Global Policy Journal

Academic Blog

• Livingstone, S; Ólafsson, K; Maier, G (2017) ‘If Children Don’t Know an Ad from Information, How Can They Grasp How Companies Use Their Personal Data?’ Media Policy Project Blog.