Digitalization and dignity: digital driving in Kenya

As digitally-mediated work grows worldwide, development scholars and practitioners are raising questions about the quality of these new forms of work. This article explores the subjective dignity experiences of digital drivers in Kenya drawing on both a survey and in-depth qualitative interviews. In spite of material indignities, a majority of drivers in 2019 considered their work dignified, particularly relative to counterfactual work opportunities in their highly informal context. This article demonstrates the ways that digitalization itself has been central to shaping a more dignified subjective work experience. Digitalization imposes dignifying rules and order, breaks down socioeconomic barriers through digital matchmaking, and to some extent democratizes opportunities for social mobility. However, dignity gains from digitalization can be undermined by failures of app companies to maintain sufficient rule enforcement and to ensure material dignity through adequate pay. In contexts of existing high informality, platform work can feel for workers like a step towards dignifying formality rather than a slide away from it.