Karen Gregory

Dr Karen Gregory (she/her) is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the School of Social and Political Science. She is a digital sociologist, ethnographer, and Programme Co-Director of the MSc in Digital Sociology. She currently co-leads the Digital Social Science Research Cluster at the Center for Data, Culture and Society at the University of Edinburgh. She is also an Associate Editor at the Journal of Cultural Economy.

Her research interests include:

• Digital sociology
• Digital labor
• Gender and technology
• Social media
• Ethnography
• Mixed methods research in social sciences
• Sharing economy
• Platform society
• Algorithmic society
• Supply chains and digital infrastructure.

Current and notable research projects include:

• Understanding Risk Among On-Demand Food Couriers in Edinburgh: This project explores how on-demand couriers construct, represent, and negotiate work-related risks and draws from in-depth interviews with riders. 
• How can the GDPR be used to create leverage among gig workers? This research project, which is funded by the Edinburgh Futures Institute, takes Deliveroo riders in Edinburgh as a case study, drawing sociology, computer science, and legal studies together to understand and answer gig worker concerns about data processing, automatic decision-making, and fair work. Read more here.
• Visualising Hidden Platform Labour: This interdisciplinary project makes visible the unseen and invisible traces of on-demand courier work in Edinburgh.
• Gregory, K. and Sadowski, J. 2021. Biopolitical platforms: the perverse virtues of digital labour, Journal of Cultural Economy, DOI: 10.1080/17530350.2021.1901766Gregory, K., & Paredes Maldonado, M. (2020). Delivering Edinburgh: Uncovering the digital geography of platform labour in the city. Information, Communication and Society, 23(8), 1187-1202. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2020.1748087
• Gregory, K. (2020). “My life is more valuable than this”: Understanding risk among on-demand food couriers in Edinburgh. Work, Employment And Society, N/A, 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1177/0950017020969593
• Gregory, K. (2019). Pushed and pulled to the Internet: Self employment in the spiritual marketplace. American Behavioral Scientist, 63(2), 208-224. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764218794768
• Gregory, K. (2019). Working nine to five: What a way to make an academic living? In E. Losh, & J. Wernimont (Eds.), Bodies of Information: Intersectional Feminism and Digital Humanities University of Minnesota Press.