Turf wars: The livelihood and mobility frictions of motorbike taxi drivers on Hanoi's streets

Abstract

In Vietnam's capital city Hanoi, the growing popularity of application based (app-based) motorbike taxis has offered many inhabitants new opportunities to pursue a mobile livelihood with ride-hailing platforms. Nonetheless, as this influx of app-based drivers has hit the city's streets, specific livelihood and mobility frictions have emerged, notably with informal, ‘traditional’ motorbike taxi drivers, or xe ôm. In this paper we analyse these evolving sites and moments of friction and their impacts on driver livelihoods and mobilities for both driver groups. We draw conceptually on debates regarding mobility, platform economies, and urban livelihoods, while specifically interrogating the concept of friction to highlight three possible analytical applications. Methodologically, we interpret static and ride-along interviews completed with over 130 drivers. We highlight a range of tactics ‘traditional’ and app-based motorbike taxi drivers have employed to respond to rising frictions, defend their ‘turf’, and maintain their street-based livelihoods. Driver responses reveal differing access to distinctive forms of social capital and social networks, and contrasting levels of agency regarding their mobilities. By conceptually teasing apart the notion of friction, we wish to expand and deepen understandings of the experiences of vulnerability, precarity, and other impacts of platformisation for different motorbike taxi driver cohorts.