ABSTRACT This article examines how platform couriers construct occupational identity and why shared platform conditions do not reliably generate community or collective action. Drawing on 26 in‐depth interviews conducted in 2014–2015, alongside observations of two worker onboarding sessions and non‐participant observation in two private courier Facebook groups, I analyze identity as a set of cultural strategies shaped by economic dependence and classed resources. I map participants onto an identity modes matrix defined by two dimensions, aspirational framing and structural critique, which yields four identity modes: aspirational‐affirming, aspirational‐critical, anti‐aspirational‐critical, and ambivalent or detached. Across these modes, aspirational narratives and distancing practices often function as stigma management and status protection, but they can also weaken incentives to identify with other couriers or invest in collective projects. Structural critiques of pay, control, and fairness are common, yet they more often remain individualized or episodic than mobilizing, given platform isolation and limited organizational infrastructure. Overall, the findings show how inequality in platform delivery is not only economic but cultural, shaping how workers interpret the job, manage dignity, and imagine what they owe to others and what others might owe to them.
W Charles (Fri,) studied this question.
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