There has been considerable hype about the potential of online work to contribute to economic growth and development and ameliorate unemployment in Africa through the creation of jobs, particularly ‘decent work’, by freeing citizens from geographic constraints of labour demand and misalignment of skills and resources in national economies. The discussion addresses structural drivers of precarity in the marketplace and of its ongoing success. The findings suggest that despite the company’s emphases on efficiency, flexibility, and freedom from the physical office, freelancers face significant trade-offs in undertaking such work, notably its infrequency, barriers to high wages, and intense global competition. An exploration of the characteristics of technology-mediated work on Upwork, including contract structure, wages, consistency of work, risk-management strategies, and profiles of clients and freelancers follows. It is framed against neoliberal narratives about the creative economy, including promises of financial success and freedom from rigid Fordism. The analysis begins by contextualizing the growth of freelancing in a transformation of capitalism to a mode of flexible accumulation. This paper engages discourses about the nature of creative work through a case study of creative worker freelancing on Upwork, an online marketplace.
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