Struggling with platforms: Marxist identities, cultural production, and everyday work in Brazil

Abstract

This article analyzes how Marxist platform-dependent cultural producers in Brazil - one woman and two drag queens - navigate platform spaces in relation to their identities and everyday work. Struggling with platforms refers to the specific ways in which Marxist cultural producers seek to engage in class struggles, while also grappling with the constraints imposed by platforms. There are paradoxes, tensions and frictions in these efforts. In analytical terms, the article develops how this ‘struggling with platforms’ occurs in two main dimensions: (1) struggling with identities – including the implications of being a Marxist cultural producer on platforms and how one's identity is shaped and commodified in this space, and (2) struggling with everyday work – considering how the pursuit of social change is both constrained and enabled on platforms.