Algorithmic Antagonism: Algorithmic Control, Precarity and Resistance in China's Food-Delivery Platform Economy

By Hui Huang

This book provides a critical examination of how artificial intelligence and algorithmic management are transforming labour relations in the platform economy, with a focus on food-delivery workers in China. By combining ethnographic research with labour process theory, it reveals the hidden mechanisms of digital labour control and the ways workers resist algorithmic exploitation in an era of technological dominance. This book will interest scholars of the platform gig economy, of Chinese labor issues, and of the sociology of AI.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 9819526884
• ISBN13: 9789819526888
• Release Date: October 2025
• Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
• Length: 183 Pages