Precarity revisited: Exploring camming work in Brazil and experiences of precarity in platform-based (erotic) content production

Abstract

The article addresses labour precarity in platform-based cultural production from the perspective of Brazilian camming work, examining it through cammers’ perceptions and experiences. Precarity has been a framework for assessing work conditions in platformised cultural industries. This framework stems from a normative standpoint of standard work and employment, which neither represents labour markets nor marginalised cultural labour in the majority world. This article tackles precarity from marginalised Global South cultural producers’ perspectives. Drawing on 15 in-depth interviews with cisgender female cammers, I show that local work and employment realities, and the positionality of platforms within them, are critical to cammers’ sense-making of labour precarity. For the cammers, the parameters for evaluating quality and precarity are unstable and adjusted according to their position within and outside platform economies. Conclusions suggest that precarity is situated and derives its meaning from a complex articulation of workers’ experiences and positions across various economies.