Based on the results of the research Uberization, Far-Right Politics, and Peripheral Workers: Perspectives on Political Orientations and Labor Transformations, I examine the blurred boundaries of the pair domination-resistance on everyday practices of uberized workers. I consider it another element of what I have been defining as informalization processes, discussing the complex feedback loop between datafication, surveillance, algorithmic management and the everyday practices of workers in face of these new forms of labor control and organization.

However, this domination–resistance dialectic can only be properly understood by grounding both the research and the discussion in the material conditions and specificities of each occupational activity at stake. That is, it is necessary to grasp what is general in the process of uberization, but always from the historical characteristics—and their transformations—of each type of work.

The discussion is based on empirical research conducted with domestic workers, bike couriers, and motoboys in the city of São Paulo. Through an in-depth study of the life histories of 18 workers, as well as focus groups involving 36 participants, I unpack a range of everyday practices enacted individually and collectively, analyzing how these differ across occupations and how they are appropriated by/ how they scape platform companies.

The tension between amateur work and informal professionalization processes guides this reflection. I propose an analysis of how different actors appropriate the loss of professional identity in the activities they perform, while simultaneously reconstructing it in new ways. Also, I argue that the idea of fragmentation among workers is fragile when confronted with various forms of collective organization that not only sustain everyday work, but also can make it more efficient and productive. I discuss how this collective strategies end up offering new tools for new modes of subjectivation that both shape and are shaped by uberization.

Adding further complexity, I present findings on the adhesion of these workers to right-wing and far-right governments, examining how their political alignments are linked to transformations in labor and how these are experienced daily. Finally, I offer a more detailed analysis of the national protests led by motorcycle couriers—especially those that followed the 2020 #BrequeDosApps mobilization—reflecting on collective organization and the unification of workers amid extreme political polarization.