Tracing flows across a behti ganga and a khada nala : household accountants within the ride-hailing platforms in India

Although the burgeoning intersection between platform studies and social reproduction theory addresses how off-platform socialties shape work on geographically tethered platforms, new accounting work generated by these platforms has received limited attention. This paper asks: How do gig workers on geographically tethered platforms collaborate within their households to manage accounting that spans across the platform ecosystem and household finance? Engaging with Social Reproduction Theory, we investigate how gig workers in the cab ride-hailing sector in India recruit a household accountant for such work. The paper draws on a 36-month ethnography among single car owners and their household accountants in Kolkata, India. The liquidity requirements of their households shape how gig workers engage with the volatility of money generated through platforms. They navigate these intersecting financial pulls across two different bank accounts – the behti ganga account (characterized by uncontrolled liquidity) and the khada nala account (earmarked as a fixed deposit for the household). We argue that these gig workers sustain their platform work, in turn generating value for the platform, based on three types of work done by their household accountant: transaction and conversion, ethno-accounting, and bridging household finance and individual finance.