Dragana Mrvos

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About

Dragana Mrvos is a critical scholar of work and organization, whose research dissects the power dynamics and lived realities of the gig economy. Her work is anchored in the sociology of work and labour process theory, with a sharp focus on how digital platforms reshape worker control, resistance, and collective identity. In her highly cited 2021 article, *“Illusioned and Alienated: Can Gig Workers Organise Collectively?”*, Mrvos delivers a powerful theoretical intervention. By examining the ride-hailing sector, she moves beyond the rhetoric of flexibility to reveal a deep-seated condition of alienation. Her key contribution is the concept of *material estrangement*—an objective form of alienation stemming from the arbitrary, algorithm-driven distribution of work and earnings. This framework explains how workers are systematically excluded from the product of their labour and left disadvantaged, even as they are seduced by the illusion of autonomy. Mrvos’s work is vital for understanding the structural barriers to collective organizing in the platform economy, offering both a rigorous critique and a foundational lens for future research on worker solidarity in precarious times.