Harry Rodgers
Thesis Title: Creative Labour of The Venezuelan Diaspora: Entrepreneurship, Imagination, and Precarity in Spain
This project will examine how Venezuelan migrants in Spain construct opportunities and identities in the context of transnational migration, economic crisis, and a global shift towards informal employment. This will be achieved through an ethnographic study of informal labour among the Venezuelan diaspora – many of whom are employed in the so-called ‘gig economy’, undertaking taxi driving, nannying, language tuition, working ‘off the books’ in cafés and restaurants, as well as online economic practices such as selling content and goods through platforms like Twitch, YouTube or TikTok. Whilst existing research on migrants and precarious labour focuses on economic necessity, this project aims to examine how creative and informal work, integral to so-called ‘platform migration’ (Collins 2021), encompasses an array of complex and diverse experiences for transnational migrants. The project will be organised around two key thematic threads: 1) creative labour; 2) imagination and hope. Rather than dwelling on crises or victimhood, these lines of inquiry are deployed to enable a greater foregrounding of agency by considering the socioeconomic context, history, needs, and diversity within the diaspora.
This ethnographic approach enables a ground-level view of how global structures of power and hierarchies of inequality are constituted through everyday lived experiences, rather than abstract categorisations (Ehrkamp 2019). Attending to creative labour illustrates the reciprocal relationships between migrants and host nations and complicates enduring narratives about immigration. By paying attention to everyday activities, I intend to understand how migrant lives and labours are realised in conditions that are simultaneously creative and constrained.
Biography
Harry Rodgers (he/him) is an ESRC +3.5 funded PhD student in Human Geography at the University of Leicester. He holds a BA and MRes in Anthropology, with a particular interest in migration studies and digital ethnography.
Harry is also a founding member of the TikTok Ethnography Collective (TEC), which is a multidisciplinary collective of researchers conducting an ethnographic study of TikTok over several years. Started during the pandemic, the group now focuses on widening participation in digital ethnography through articles, workshops and blog posts, whilst also continuing ongoing research into the platform. More information is available here: https://www.tiktokethnography.com/
Prior to his PhD, Harry has worked within two mixed-methods research agencies, conducting qualitative research for public, private, and third-sector clients across a range of topics including healthcare, digital media, housing and communities, and mobility across higher education. He enjoys working on a variety of topics but is keen to complete his PhD and realise a in-depth project on migration, informal labour and economy, and how this is experienced transnationally and across digital contexts.
Publications
Rodgers, Harry, and Emily Christine Lloyd-Evans. ‘Intimate Snapshots: TikTok, Algorithm, and the Recreation of Identity’. Anthways 1, no. 1 (2021). https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5515620
Human Geography
University of Leicester
2023 Cohort, +3.5
https://hrodgers.myportfolio.com/
Supervisory Team
Dr Matt Wilde
De Ben Coles