The Black Social Ranking Experience at Uber: A Racialized Reflection on Contemporary Surveillance

Abstract

This study analyzes the social ranking experience of Black users and drivers of the private transportation company Uber in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. With the attention turned to the experience and evaluation system of the company, it is observed how they appear in the contemporary logic of surveillance. Based on discussions and observations carried out in exploratory research, the study asks: with data surveillance mechanisms in operation, how are Black people experiencing the social logic of ranking in Uber’s environment? Cartography was the methodology chosen for the study, considering the possibility of monitoring processes and their commitment to experimentation — with flexible data production procedures — as well as its research-intervention nature (Escóssia et al., 2009). Thus, the main objective of the research was to investigate this experience in order to broaden the analysis of contemporary surveillance with a racialized approach; and among the specific objectives, we aim at breaking the silencing and invisibility of Black theoretical perspectives (Ribeiro, 2017). The theoretical framework of the study will be divided into two study axes: race relations and surveillance. It is therefore realized that, in the era of big data, discrimination can appear in a hidden way as technologies perform a false neutrality that accelerates and deepens it (Benjamin, 2019).