Abstract
The advent of information and communication technologies has fuelled the digital freelance economy with millions of independent contractors (freelancers) from all over the world, working for distant clients through online labour platforms. This chapter observes how the Russian language and specific socio-economic factors facilitate a distinct online labour market that operates across the vast territory of the former Soviet Union and beyond. The data from a leading Russian-language online labour platform shed light on the complex geography of the digital freelance economy in Russia, and reveal some important trends over an almost fifteen-year period. The study contributes to the emerging literature on the geography of digital labour in the globalising world.
The reported study was funded by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR), project number 20-011-00587.
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Shevchuk, A., Strebkov, D., Tyulyupo, A. (2021). The Geography of the Digital Freelance Economy in Russia and Beyond. In: Will-Zocholl, M., Roth-Ebner, C. (eds) Topologies of Digital Work. Dynamics of Virtual Work. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80327-8_2
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