Sewing the city: crisis of capital, logistical urbanization, and app-based delivery workers

Abstract

Abstract In the context of the recent transformations undergone by work in Brazilian metropolises, there has been a multiplication of precarious jobs related to circulation of goods. The crisis of capital and of the value-form seem to be giving rise to the need of efficient circulation as a condition for accumulation, which is reflected in the so- -called logistical urbanization. The article presents an interpretation of these processes based on Lefebvre’s levels of analysis of the urban (G-M-P). By exploring the relationship between crisis of capital, logistical urbanization, and the everyday dimension of app-based delivery workers, we conclude that the precarization of work and the production of logistical infrastructures emerge as material expressions of the increasing crisis of the valorization of value; at the same time, they alter the forms of struggle of the working class.