Mobility, Precarity and Risk: A Beckian Analysis of Digital Nomadism

This article analyses the global mobility patterns of digital nomads through a Beckian model of risk. After introducing the contemporary social figure of the digital nomad and situating her within the mobilities paradigm, I move on to discussing Ulrich Beck’s model of risk in understanding (second) modernity and how it applies in the context of modern work practices and employment relations. I then argue that digital nomads use mobility as a hedge against the precarious (and risky) employment relations they often find themselves in. At the same time, however, these same mobility practices introduce different forms of risk back into the hypermobile lifestyle.

DIGITAL NOMADS ON THE MOVE

Digital nomads utilise computing and communication technology to work remotely and live hypermobile lifestyles of perpetual travel (Beaumont, 2019; Cook, 2020; Green, 2020; Mancinelli, 2020; Reichenberger, 2018; Schlagwein, 2018; Thompson, 2019). Envisioned by Makimoto and Manners (1997) over two decades ago at a time when the exciting possibilities of the internet were just beginning to inspire the public imagination, Digital Nomad was a manifesto for a lifestyle movement that would liberate the individual from their “9 to 5 prison” and 10,000-year-long sedentary daze. Thanks to developments in technology (e.g., smaller and more portable computers) and an increasingly connected world (via the proliferation of the internet/Wi-Fi and affordable air travel), these digital nomads would no longer be tethered to locally-based workplaces. Instead, for the first time in human history since the agricultural revolution, the authors argued, human beings would be able to satisfy their natural curiosity and nomadic spirit – as well as their work obligations – whilst travelling around the world and living in “tribal” communities united by common interests, values and goals. The future of work, it was argued, was mobile and global.

Interestingly, Makimoto and Manners (1997) argued that this tech-nomadic future would do more than just disrupt sedentary and localised work practices and promote greater spatial and personal freedom. It would also usher in a new reality of diminishing relevance for the nation-state. In a world where “national boundaries have less and less relevance” and “people’s ties to a geographic region weaken” (p. 23), this emergent class of hypermobile figures would, increasingly, no longer identify with their country of birth. Mobilised by vast mobility networks and able to work wherever (and whenever) through wireless technology, digital nomads would discard the traditional practice of pegging a substantial part of their identity to a territorial unit (a nation, region or locale) and instead “root” their sense of belonging in the fluid (and untethered) abstracted world of ideas ­– which are necessarily mobile, non-localised and communicable.

This visionary future of the world appears to fit within the “mobilities paradigm” (Sheller & Urry, 2006; Urry, 2007) which critiques and questions the sedentarist presuppositions of modernity as well as recognising the complex migrations of subjects, objects, knowledge, power and capital that increasingly characterise our globalised and interconnected realities. In resonance with Makimoto and Manners (1997), mobilities scholars question the relevance of a “national gaze” in a globalised world. Instead, they argue that the world is, and has always been, “on the move” (Cresswell, 2006) and reject analytical and conceptual categories that imply fixed, impermeable and territorially rooted realities, such as “methodological nationalism” (Wimmer & Glick Schiller, 2002). What is needed, instead, is some new theoretical architecture – a paradigmatic shift, if you will – that liberates the social sciences from its “sedentary cage” and recognises the mobile nature of reality, thereby transcending national and territorially-fixed categories of analysis which are no longer useful ­– if they ever were. A more productive and representational analytic through which to analyse the social world, it is suggested, is “methodological cosmopolitanism” (Beck, 2008). This “cosmopolitan gaze” recognises the multiple, overlapping and crisscrossing “networks and flows” (Urry, 2000, p. 1) of transnational ideas and things that not only animate the contemporary world and transform our subjectivities, identities and social relations (Urry, 2007), but opens up discursive space for alternative ontological and conceptual understandings of reality.

RISK AT WORK

In the same year that Makimoto and Manners (1997) introduced Digital Nomad and its exciting visionary possibilities into the public imaginary, Allen and Henry (1997) published a paper that operationalised the framework of “risk” developed by Ulrich Beck in his Risk Society (1992) to explore the nature of employment relationships in “second modernity.”[1] Using the UK as a case study, the authors noted the increasingly precarious nature of contemporary labour practices and contracts. In a “cultural shift” (Allen & Henry, 1997, p. 185) away from full-time, protected and secure employment towards part-time, unregulated and temporary/contract work – what Standing (2005) calls “contractualization” – the authors argued that modern work practices were fundamentally marked by insecurity and instability.

As the authors rightly note, a central argument to a Beckian analysis of (second) modernity (1992, 2009) is that the social, political and cultural structures of contemporary global society are inextricably lodged in a trajectory of development that’s increasingly dominated by unforeseen, unknowable, unintended and unavoidable “side effects” that have emerged from technological innovation and the pursuit of increasing levels of rationalisation. On the economic front, attempts to “rationalise and restructure work and employment in an instrumental fashion” (Allen & Henry, 1997, p. 183) have led to the end of lifelong full-time work. As companies adapt to the increasingly competitive neoliberal landscape under the rubric of “flexibility” by experimenting with flexible terms and conditions of employment – e.g., hiring when demand is high, firing when demand is low; short-term contract/project work – they inevitably introduce new levels of risk and insecurity into modern labour contracts (Allen & Henry, 1997, p. 180). Consequently, no longer could modern workers bank on a job for life. Instead, they faced a precarious employment future marked by insecurity and a perpetual search for work. Stable employment, it was argued, had been relegated to the dustbin of the 20th century.

This transformation from secure to insecure forms of employment echoes the same conclusion drawn by Beck in The Brave New World of Work (2000) released a few years later at the dawn of the 21st century. In this important monograph, Beck argues that contemporary worker-employer relations and modern work practices are fundamentally inscribed with risk, uncertainty and insecurity. For Beck, risk has become a standard feature of modernity and permeates all spheres of life, including the economy and especially the job market, modern work practices and employment relations. In striking similarity between the so-called first and third worlds, Beck argues, work is becoming more temporary and insecure than ever before, such that “the social structure in the heartlands of the West is thus coming to resemble the patchwork quilt of the South, characterised by diversity, unclarity and insecurity in people’s work and life (2000, p. 1). He calls this the “Brazilianization of the West” in reference to the economic climate of Brazil. Only a minority of economically active citizens in Brazil are engaged in full-time work. The rest of the population – the majority – are embedded in precarious and unstable work arrangements, such as travelling vendors, artisans and personal services that constantly move between different types of activity, employment and educational/training opportunities.

Moreover, a shift towards temporary, short-term and casual/part-time employment has necessitated the uptake of multiple sources of income. Beck calls these manifold and sporadic work practices “nomadic” and argues that despite appearing like some relic of premodernity[2] it’s an entirely new phenomenon that’s spreading rapidly around the world and continually confirming that “attractive, highly skilled and well-paid full-time employment is on its way out” (2000, p. 2). These nomadic work practices are becoming the norm, not just in Brazil and the developing world, but in most parts of the (highly) developed world, such as in Beck’s own Germany and, especially since the 1990s, in Japan (Osawa, Kim, & Kingston, 2013). In addition, a growing number of “precariats” (Standing, 2014) are emerging in the global economy. This emergent “class” of workers can be defined by their precarious status in the economy, e.g., as embedded in flexible, temporary, casual or part-time labour contracts – relations of production that guarantee nothing but insecurity.

Importantly, in contrast to earlier periods of labour relations where most of the economic risk inherent in the free market was shouldered by the nation-state, its governing institutions and employers, these days, much of that same risk has been reallocated onto the shoulders of individual workers. This top-down displacement/replacement of risk from the collective to the individual – or the “re-regulation of labour along individualistic lines” (Allen & Henry, 1997, p. 181) – is itself symptomatic of the individualisation ethic of modernity (Beck, 1992, 2000, 2009; Giddens, 1991). Because the individual has become the basic unit of analysis in modernity, it is the individual – and not her collective family – that must bear the risk of her freedom and autonomy.

DIGITAL NOMADS, THE GIG ECONOMY AND RISK

Whilst freedom and autonomy are touted as some of the defining benefits and characteristics of digital nomadism (Cook, 2020; Mancinelli, 2020; Reichenberger, 2018), what isn’t discussed or sufficiently recognised in academic discourse thus far – with the exception of a recent analysis by Hensellek and Puchala (2021) – is the degree of risk involved and inscribed in the lifestyle itself: specifically, in its technologically mediated employment relations and global mobility practices. Like most individuals in the current economic climate, digital nomads are embedded in precarious and risky employment relations (Thompson, 2018). However, the degree of risk involved in the different expressions of online/remote work exists on a continuum – from less to more risk. At one end of the continuum, digital nomads employed in full-time remote-work employment enjoy more security (and less risk) than nomads occupying positions towards the other end of the spectrum: i.e., self-employed digital nomads engaged in freelance/project-based employment, digital nomad entrepreneurs, and nomads who sustain their global mobility practices through piecemeal work obtained through the “gig economy” via “on-demand” online platforms such as Upwork and Fiverr.

Whilst freelancing and entrepreneurial pursuits are inherently risky forms of employment (Alvarez & Barney, 2005), the increasing turn towards the gig economy for regular (micro) work by digital nomads is a significant and concerning phenomenon. The growth of the gig economy and digitally mediated forms of employment signals a further (de)evolution of the labour market towards more flexible and hence risky employment practices. In continued efforts to remain competitive by dipping into the talent pool on an as-needed basis, degrees of risk previously unimaginable in modern work relations have been inscribed into the lives of workers all around the world – including digital nomads-as-freelancers or gig workers who must bid for jobs in competition with others and thereby often work below market rates or even for free (De Stefano, 2015). Indeed, according to Prassl (2018), despite “bitterly contesting” the nature of this phenomenon, there’s a growing consensus amongst journalists, regulators and academics that we’re witnessing a “revolution” (p. 3) in modern work practices and employment relations. Within this precarious climate, digital nomads often live under the looming threat of financial ruin and a return (home) to traditional, territorially-rooted employment.

Unfortunately, this revolution that’s sweeping across the world marks a historic low-point in labour protection for the individual. Not only does it displace work from regulatory protection, but it also turns our productive capacities as human beings into services that can be booked, bought and brokered “on demand.” In brief: in the gig economy, human labour is transformed into a service that can be bought just “like any other commodity” (Prassl, 2018, p. 4) and discarded (just like any other commodity) when no longer needed. Of course, the reification (and exploitation) of human labour in modernity is nothing new. Marxist scholars (e.g. Lukács, 2010) as well as Marx (1988) himself long lamented the commodification of human labour since the Industrial Revolution and the growth of capitalism. Moreover, as Prassl (2018) rightly argues, workers have always provided services to their employers and customers in exchange for monetary compensation.

So what exactly is so revolutionary about this revolution? Before the gig economy, workers were protected by a range of legal and economic regulations in exchange for their labour-as-a-commodity: e.g., minimum wages, unfair dismissal laws, pensions, social security and the promise of regular work even during market downturns or lulls in customer demand (p. 3). However, the gig economy provides none of these regulatory measures. Instead, workers are left in a precarious situation without security or protection and where work can “dry up” at a moment’s notice. It is ­– in a new and alarming sense – exploitation without benefits.

MOBILITY AS A HEDGE AGAINST RISK

Risk is a useful model in explaining the mobility patterns of digital nomads to the Global South, as well as the uptake of the hypermobile lifestyle itself. Because of the precarious economic landscape of modernity and the risky nature of their employment relations (as freelancers, entrepreneurs, gig workers, etc), members of this tech-nomadic community often base themselves (albeit temporarily) in countries with lower costs of living relative to their natal home (almost always in the Global North) and/or earning currency (usually USD, AUD, GBP or EUR). Although theoretically able to work wherever (and whenever) they want, most digital nomads “moor” in the Global South, such as Thailand (Green, 2020; Mancinelli, 2020), Indonesia (Winarya & Pertiwi, 2020) and Colombia (Cook, 2020) and sustain their global movements through geoarbitrage: i.e., living somewhere with a lower cost of living whilst earning money in a stronger currency, thereby making their salary or income more valuable. This ensures that throughout the ebbs and flows of (online) work availability, they’ll still be able to pay for the basic necessities of life: accommodation, food, etc.

Explored through the model of risk, then, the mobility patterns of digital nomads to the Global South can be seen as a hedge against economic risk. By leveraging the economic dividends of geoarbitrage and basing themselves in cheaper parts of the world, digital nomads use mobility as an “economic cushion” to protect themselves from the inherent risk(s) involved in their insecure, unstable and precarious employment practices – again, to greater or lesser extents based on their particular forms of digitally-mediated employment configurations. Thus, digital nomadism, it can be argued, is more a response or neoliberal adaptation (Mancinelli, 2020) to precarious economic and employment conditions rather than the pursuit of “freedom” per se. In other words, it is not so much a concern for autonomy, independence and spatial freedom that fuels their mobility practices, but rather the imperative to cushion themselves against the impending economic risks that are increasingly placed on the shoulders of workers in this particular stage of modernity.

Despite the “criticalist” undertones of this argument, many digital nomads I’ve met and gotten close to over the last nine years often refer to the harsh economic reality “back home” as a prime motivation in the uptake of this Global South-centric hypermobile existence – including myself. This is in spite of the appeal of the lifestyle frequently being couched in terms of freedom and autonomy. Indeed, it can be argued that the very appeal of freedom and mobility – as understood by digital nomads – is that it hedges against economic risk. Exploring how digital nomads interpret freedom, and, specifically, whether hedging of economic risk factors into their understanding of it, requires further research.

Moreover, the relationship between risk and mobility works in the other direction, too: i.e., mobility itself introduces new currents of risk into digital nomadism. According to research by Altringer (2015), some digital nomads experience slower career development than their peers back home and miss out on learning valuable skills taught on-the-job in traditional, localised work environments. Mediated representations of digital nomads working from beaches, cafés and bars can also make them appear “less serious” about their work. These represent significant professional risks that can have an impact on both the career development – and hence earning potential – of digital nomads. Furthermore, by pursuing mobile lives of self-employment and entrepreneurship, nomads forsake employer-funded superannuation contributions and retirement plans. Thus, the pursuit of economic security through mobility as a hedge against risk ultimately places their financial future in an even more precarious situation. Economic insecurity, it seems, has come through the back door.

To conclude: whilst digital nomads often use mobility as a hedge against the increasing burden of economic risk placed on the modern worker, the pursuit of security through what is an otherwise insecure lifestyle choice can ultimately lead to further (future) financial insecurity. This can potentially lock digital nomads into the gravitational orbit of the Global South from which they have not the means to pull themselves out. More concerningly, they may find themselves significantly “behind” their peers that “stayed behind” in matters of financial and social capital upon their return (if at all). In the renowned words of Eleanor Roosevelt: with freedom comes responsibility – and, I’d argue: risk.

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FOOTNOTES

[1] “Second modernity” refers to a particular state of (late) modernity characterised by unforeseen, unintended and barely calculable risks which have emerged from the (successful) project of modernisation itself. See Beck (1992, 2000, 2009).

[2] Beck appears to be referencing the work ethic that characterised labour relations in premodernity before the widespread influence of Calvinism and the subsequent adoption of the “Protestant ethic” at the dawn of capitalism in Europe: i.e., working just enough to cover one’s everyday needs, instead of working to accumulate capital in the pursuit of confirming favour/disfavour and hence salvation/damnation in the eyes of God. See Weber (2002).