Abstract
Today’s mobile technology and mobile professions mean that people are nearly always either in, or connected to someone who is in motion. And yet, communities persist in the face of this constant motion. This is a qualitative study of a mobile labor group—taxi drivers in Chicago. Similar to Wallis’s (2011) conclusions, I found that access to and use of a mobile phone does not automatically imbue taxi drivers with power and autonomy from forces that seem to be working against them. However, access to mobile phones does help to shake up the hierarchy of control in the taxi industry. This study has also identified another type of community where the theory of polymedia (Madianou & Miller, 2012) applies, that is, labor communities, and has shown that while choice of technology may offer some sense of power, access to mobile communication technology does not necessarily result in significant changes in power structures within and surrounding a community.
Introduction
Globalization’s economic structure along with advancements in transportation and communication technology have led to important changes in how people create and maintain community—both personal and professional. The mobile technology and the mobile professions that exist today mean that people are nearly always either in, or connected to someone who is in motion. And yet, communities persist in the face of this constant motion. One group that embodies the interaction of globalization, mobile communication, and community is taxi drivers.
This study looks at globalization from below, from the perspective of an undervalued labor force within Chicago that also plays an integral, local role in the city’s global economy. Cab drivers are an important part of the city’s transportation system but they are largely ignored in public and scholarly discourse (Luedke, 2009). The majority of Chicago’s taxi drivers are immigrants (Bruno & Schneidman, 2009) who embody globalization as people who are mobile across national borders and throughout the city. Their job of moving people around Chicago also makes them an active part of the global economic system.
Certainly mobile media are crucial to enabling the movement of people, ideas, and products, but it is important to not be distracted by focusing solely on the latest devices, rather scholars must work to understand “the social contexts in which these components come together in communication” (Jensen, 2013, p. 27). People have always been mobile in some form, but the incorporation of mobile devices into our lives raises the question: how does mobile communication impact society (Wei, 2013)? In addition, how are communities impacted by mobile communication and movement of community members common under the influence of globalization? As such, the following research questions guided this study, RQ1: To what extent does community have meaning for people in the context of local and global movement? RQ2: In what ways are mobile communication technologies integrated in the community creation process?
Communication technology and community
The concept and enactment of community have changed because of the influence of the global economy and migration. Community represents how people live their lives, and examining how communities adapt to social changes can illustrate how broad forces, like globalization, impact people at the everyday level. We know from Granovetter (1973) that communities flourish when there is a mixture of strong and weak ties. By examining the relationships between ties in individual networks, he argues, researchers can learn about larger organizations like communities. Migration and globalization, by creating circumstances for interaction with people and ideas outside of one’s immediate circle, can actually contribute to the strengthening of communities according to this line of thought.
I followed Fernback’s (2007) understanding of community in thinking about it as a process that evolves and adapts according to what members need. Specifically, I conceived of community as the interaction and sharing of knowledge, information, beliefs, and practices among members. What keeps communities together is communication (Dewey, 1927), especially when they are physically dispersed.
Negotiating communities and the relationships therein via intricate communication environments is a unique characteristic emerging from globalization and mobility. Globalization involves the interconnections and movement of people, capital, commodities, images, and ideologies across the globe (Inda & Rosaldo, 2008). Improvements in communication and transportation have facilitated these global relationships and movements. Today’s globalization grew from three interrelated policies implemented in the 1970s: (a) “deregulation of domestic economic activity,” (b) “liberalization of international trade and investment,” and (c) “privatization of publicly controlled companies” (Castells, 2000, p. 137). Globalization inevitably has a local, even personal impact on people despite its global quality. Two characteristics of globalization—communication and transportation that are faster and cheaper—have resulted in greater mobility of people and quicker communication within and across borders. In 2013 the number of international migrants increased to 232 million people worldwide, up from 175 million people in 2000 (United Nations, 2013). Migration and mobility are typical features of life under globalization and therefore have an impact on communities, which must adapt to incorporate dispersed members.
Those who are physically separated find ways to make themselves present such that face-to-face and mediated communication “seem woven into a seamless web” of interactions (Licoppe, 2004, p. 135). The importance of social relationships in mobile networks leads Wei (2013) to argue that “mobile networks are social networks” linking people to their communities (p. 52). Understanding the significance of social relationships and communities in mobile networks, Wei (2013) asserts that researchers must focus on people and what the technology means to them and their communities.
Relationships and communication technology
The link between relationships and communication technology is also the basis of Madianou and Miller’s (2012) theory of “polymedia.” The theory of polymedia is premised on the idea that many people now experience complex media environments in which they make decisions about which technology to use based on its relationship with other media and “social and moral questions” surrounding the media, rather than “technical or economic parameters” (Madianou & Miller, 2012, p. 3). The focus in this line of thinking is on users and their communication decision-making process with regard to the relationship and emotions they are negotiating. As such, users communicate as much through the technology as they do through the choice of which technology to use at a particular time for a particular relationship (Madianou & Miller, 2012). In other words, the choice to send a text, make a phone call, set up a video chat, or send an email carries a certain meaning in and of itself. This added layer of meaning arises, in part, from the intricate media environments that many people now inhabit. Polymedia, the authors explain, has three requirements: (a) availability of numerous technologies, (b) high levels of media literacy (Livingstone, 2004), and (c) the shifted cost of using these devices from a pay-per-use system to an infrastructure where, for example, people pay for a monthly plan (Madianou & Miller, 2012).
Some research shows that an effect of this high level of communication access on relationships may be what Palackal et al. (2011) refer to as “bounded solidarity” wherein individuals’ already strong tie networks remain strong via mobile phone usage, but links to weak ties decrease. Put simply, “mobile technology tends towards closure rather than opening of networks” (Palackal, et al., 2011, p. 394). Bounded solidarity is a disturbing trend because “the increasing interdependence—and associated problems—that characterizes the modern era requires solutions based on interpersonal understandings and relationships that go beyond the narrow confines of restricted circles to incorporate more, not fewer, core connections” (Palackal et al., 2011, p. 407). In a globalized society it is important that individuals understand how to relate to, communicate, and/or work with people from a variety of backgrounds. As research shows, migration is increasing (United Nations, 2013), meaning that communities are becoming more diverse.
Power, community, and mobile phones
The more people migrate, the more communities depend on mobile communication to maintain these relationships over distances. The choice that many people now have to select a media technology that best suits their needs is a kind of power that influences both the relationships between people and also the relationship that people have with technology. On the one hand, people are empowered to reclaim “much of their control over the technologies, because they now have alternatives” (Madianou & Miller, 2012, p. 137). On the other hand, people may “take advantage of these different communicative opportunities in order to control the relationship” (Madianou & Miller, 2012, p. 8).
The ways people use mobile phones may have an effect on power structures within those relationships. For example, Madianou and Miller (2011, 2012) show that the communication affordances of the mobile phone in some ways empower some Filipino mothers to justify their leaving and subsequent decision to remain working overseas (2012), and then once overseas mobile phone communication also empowers those women “reconstitute their role as effective parents” (2011, p. 467). Similarly, Chib, Malik, Aricat, and Kadir (2014) examined transnational migration and motherhood among foreign domestic workers in Singapore, finding that the transnational mothers used mobile phones to “negotiate and redefine the relationships that create fissures in their sense of self” (Chib et al., 2014, p. 88). Rather than the physical distance resulting in the women feeling disconnected from their children and their roles as parents, the women expressed feeling that the phone kept them connected and allowed them to negotiate what it means for them to be a parent. However, Madianou and Miller (2011, 2012) found that their participants’ children had a more uncertain view of the phone and of their mothers’ absence, suggesting that “improvement in communication is not an unalloyed blessing” (2011, p. 467).
Access to mobile communication may be empowering in some ways, but those with influence often retain control of society’s resources, thereby remaining at the top of the power hierarchy (Ling & Horst, 2011). Wallis (2011) found that among young rural women who have moved to work in Beijing, the mobile phone does not automatically empower them with more earnings or better job prospects. In fact, some employers used the mobile phone as a way to monitor the women, highlighting the mobile phone’s capacity as a method of control in contrast to its freeing capabilities (Wallis, 2011).
Chicago’s taxi industry
In order to understand Chicago’s taxi industry and the division of labor it is important to explain two things—medallions and leasing. Regulation of U.S. taxi industries began in the 1930s wherein local governments issued permits in order to control the number of cabs on the street according to public demand (Gilbert & Samuels, 1982). These permits are also known as medallions and are placed on the hood of cabs, often as metal shield, embossed with a number and sometimes a city seal which allows the cab to be used on the street (Mathew, 2005). In Chicago, taxi medallions can be bought and sold, and since there are a limited number, the price can be quite high. In 2013 the mean price was just over US$348,000 (City of Chicago, 2014).
Because the cost of owning a medallion is so high, usually drivers lease the vehicle they drive from a taxi company who owns or manages the medallion. Lease time periods vary, but they are generally 12 to 24 hours and paid on either a daily or weekly basis. Leasing is beneficial for the cab company because drivers under this system are not employees, thus the company is not required to pay benefits such as social security or workers’ compensation (Gilbert & Samuels, 1982). This arrangement shifts the job’s risks from the cab company to the driver, who is less powerful (Mathew, 2005). Shifting of risk to less powerful actors is typical of neoliberal economies—for example, companies based in a developed country moving their operations to developing countries.
Most drivers I met lease their vehicle because the cost of purchasing a medallion is high. Drivers who lease a medallion pay the lessor up front and then hope to earn enough while driving to cover the cost of the lease fee, fuel, and earn some take-home pay. In addition to the base fare, there are a number of allowable charges that can be included in a driver’s lease, like insurance and worker’s compensation. Unfortunately, in Bruno and Hewitt’s (2010a) study of Chicago taxicab leases, 80% of drivers reported one or more violations in their leases. 1
Chicago’s taxi industry is an example of neoliberal economic patterns common under globalization. Drivers are not employees of a cab company; they are subcontracted laborers. Such “flexible” labor is characteristic of globalization (Harvey, 1990). The change to a lease system began in the 1970s (Gilbert & Samuels, 1982; Mathew, 2005) around the same time that globalization arose. Prior to this shift, drivers in Chicago earned minimum wage plus commission and had union representation. Under the lease system drivers are vulnerable to economic swings and lack representation to protect themselves (Luedke, 2010). While this labor structure creates instability and can minimize the power of laborers, those laborers can resist and empower themselves in other ways, particularly within a flexible, decentralized network. Power in a “network society” rests with those who set up a network’s goals and can link different networks, be they the empowered or those resisting (Castells, 2009). Facilitating this kind of networking are flexible communication technologies like mobile phones and the Internet.
These mobile technologies have contributed to shifts in taxi working practices by making communication and collaboration more flexible. Elaluf-Calderwood and Sorensen (2008), for example, found that London drivers who once worked largely independently now use mobile technologies to collaborate in order to thrive. Taxi information and knowledge is a source of power, and sharing it is important to industry success (Skok, 2003). Mobile technology makes that sharing more flexible for drivers and taxi companies alike.
Methods
Traditional methods of research need to adapt in order to access mobilized social phenomena. Mobile methods need to be “on the move” as are the subjects of study (Büscher, Urry, & Witchger, 2011; Urry, 2007). Strategies such as observation of movement, participation in movement, and participants’ conducting time-space diaries are among some of the recommendations (Büscher et al., 2011). Observation of movement enables researchers to “see how people bring about face-to-face relationships with other people, places and events” (Büscher et al., 2011, p. 8). This is a strategy that I adopted by observing movement of drivers throughout the city with a focus on “places of slowed movement” (Büscher et al., 2011) in order to reach this otherwise mobile population.
Given the open and exploratory nature of the two research questions, I used interviews and observation to collect data on Chicago’s immigrant taxi driver community. During 18 months of fieldwork (April 2010 to September 2011) I conducted interviews and observation primarily at restaurants that cater to taxi drivers and at airport taxi lots. I also visited a taxi company garage, a dispatching office, and a few city offices where drivers attend to professional business. In order to respect taxi drivers’ time, I conducted short and long interviews. The short interviews were approximately 15 minutes and the longer interviews were roughly an hour or more depending on how much time the driver had. I conducted 48 interviews with drivers and nondriver industry professionals—41 with drivers and seven with other professionals. Of my 41 interviews with drivers, 12 were from Pakistan, nine were from Sudan, and the remaining participants were from the following countries: Algeria, Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Jordan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Palestine, Peru, Russia, Senegal, Somalia, and Syria. All named participants and locations have been assigned a pseudonym.
I began observation at three Chicago restaurants where drivers are known to gather, which I refer to by their pseudonyms: “Indo-Pak Palace,” “Indus Valley Restaurant,” and “Falafel Plus.” Indo-Pak Palace and Indus Valley both serve Indian and Pakistani cuisine while Falafel Plus generally serves Middle Eastern cuisine. Observing taxi drivers at cafes and restaurants was an opportunity to begin talking with them in their own, everyday settings. Over time, I developed connections with several nondriver industry professionals who were crucial in helping me gain access to the additional research sites like airport taxi lots, a taxi company garage, a dispatching office, and city offices.
As an outsider, gaining access to this community was a challenge. Once I gained access, it was challenging to find a key informant to introduce me around and bring me into the community. Some people never trusted me, which I deduced after being asked several times if I worked for a government agency, and others simply did not have time to help me. My gender and nationality also became issues at various times. For the most part, the men I interacted with were respectful, but I did encounter sexual harassment as well as patriarchal attitudes that made me uncomfortable and slowed data collection. Also, I only went to relevant locations where I felt relatively safe and I generally did fieldwork during daytime. The outsider issues, the need to address my own safety, and the need to find enough time to talk with drivers who are always pressured to be mobile all presented challenges to my data collection process to some extent. Nevertheless, I learned a lot from the participants who generously shared their time and stories with me.
I began preliminary analysis after 4 months of fieldwork, which enabled me to begin seeing themes and connections emerging from the data, and allowed me to refine my interview questions, better track patterns of behavior during observation, as well as acquire participants’ input and perspectives on my early findings to ascertain if my understandings were accurate. Upon ending fieldwork I systematically analyzed the collected data in order to reach my interpretations. I began the final analysis by reading through all of my field notes twice. During the first full reading I began coding the notes. Using Word’s track changes function, I searched for important themes, quotes, and illustrative events relevant to the research questions. I then began a second full reading of the coded notes in which I concurrently created an Excel document to organize and categorize the coded texts. The second full reading and concurrent charting of findings provided me with an in-depth understanding of my data for analysis and reference throughout the writing period.
Results and discussion
Taxi drivers are among the most plugged in people in Chicago, many driving vehicles with computerized dispatch systems, Citizens’ Band (CB) radios, global positioning systems (GPS), mobile phones, credit card machines, and sometimes even a laptop, iPod, and/or camera. Drivers make strategic choices about which technology to use based largely on the need to earn money. Although the theory of polymedia was developed in the context of personal, familial relationships, the notion of choice of technology having meaning applies in the context of work relationships as well.
Community manifested itself in two ways—mediated collaboration among drivers and behavior at immobile places. Drivers collaborate using both official and unofficial communication technologies. Drivers in Chicago collaborate in a mobile work environment with their respective taxi companies and dispatch services as well as with each other toward the common goals of job efficiency, stress reduction, and earning a living through daily communication. The technologies that they use for this collaborative communication are not always permitted. As such, I have labeled these kinds of mediated communication as either official or unofficial. Drivers choose whether to use official or unofficial channels based not on moral or emotional factors as polymedia theory would suggest, but on the practical need to earn money. The concept of polymedia need not be limited to personal relationships; it can also be applied to understand professional relationships, particularly mobile professionals who must use communication technology to earn a living.
Official collaboration
Official collaboration refers to communication that occurs between drivers and their companies or dispatching services. Larger taxi companies can afford to offer 24-hour dispatching services while smaller companies rely on the traditional citizens’ band (CB) radio, often only offered during regular business hours. The majority of drivers I interviewed had access to dispatching services through a company, either through the one they lease their vehicle from or the one they affiliate with as a medallion owner.
Collaborative communication through a dispatching service involves a CB radio and/or technology that most participants called the “Gandalf.”
2
All taxis have a CB radio and some have both a CB radio and a Gandalf. The CB radio functions on a radio frequency so that dispatchers and drivers can send voice messages to all people tuned into the frequency. It is a one-to-many communication device but few drivers spoke about using it. According to “Daniel,” editor of “Hackney Monthly” (a local monthly newspaper that publishes taxi industry-related news) and a former taxi driver, the CB radio was used more in the past for both collaboration and socializing. He recalled what it was like using the CB radio: Anybody could talk to anybody, so you had guys on the radio: ‘Hey, let’s go meet at this place and play some pool’ or something like that, and everybody could hear us, whoever wanted to go went … you had this communication back then where a lot of people could talk to a lot of people, and it kind of went away with more technology because along with the benefits of that [the radio], there was also a lot of noise, everybody talking at once so that was kind of problematic.
Use of the radio has waned as newer official technology has been incorporated into the industry, such as the Gandalf.
The Gandalf is a computerized data terminal attached to the dashboard of a cab. A driver logs into the Gandalf with a specific coding system based on his 3 location in the city and will see a list of fares awaiting pick-up in that zone. Dispatchers in a remote location receive calls from customers and these requests are entered into the system from a desktop computer and placed in a queue for the respective zone where the customer is located. This queue is the list that a driver sees when he logs in from the vehicle. If a driver decides to accept a fare he will go through a series of prompts ending with the customer’s address. If a driver sees that all the fares already have assigned drivers, he will be placed in a queue in order to receive the next fare in that zone, assuming he does not drive out of the zone.
Drivers expressed mixed feelings about the Gandalf’s effectiveness. Some drivers prefer not to use it, like “Aakif,” a 35-year-old Sudanese man who has been driving a taxi for several years. He finds that it takes too long for customers to get out of their houses/apartments or they simply do not show up at all. For drivers like Aakif the low-tech option of cruising the streets is preferred. Many drivers I met had a neutral impression of the technology, mostly using it to locate fares in underserved areas of the city.
Other drivers, like “Babu,” are passionate about using the Gandalf. Babu is a 36-year-old man from India who has been driving a taxi in and around Chicago on and off for 4 or 5 years. On the day we met his leased cab did not have a Gandalf system, but he said the taxi company he drove for planned to install it soon. He exclaimed, “I love it [Gandalf]!” when recalling his use of the technology in the past. In comparing it with the old radio technology he explained that with the radio, the “dispatcher is commander” but with the Gandalf “satellite is commander.” In other words, the Gandalf is more democratic in assigning fares to drivers, an advantage noted by many of the drivers I met. When a human being is assigning fares to drivers s/he may favor friends by assigning them ideal fares (e.g., to an airport) and assigning less desirable fares (e.g., short distances) to other drivers. Since the Gandalf works by assigning fares to drivers based on their position in a queue, it minimizes the potential for favoritism.
Official collaborative technologies support a professional collaborative network of mobile drivers, but they are less effective with supporting a professional collaborative community of drivers. Drivers have little control over these devices and the communication that they enable. Perhaps the CB radio, with the ability to put out social calls as Daniel described, had the potential for building community, but the move to mobile data terminals (MDTs) minimizes that potential from an official device. Likely, this lack of communion, as it were, is also because the official methods of collaboration support a hierarchical system wherein dispatchers and taxi companies are gatekeepers of information that gets passed down to drivers. Moreover, these are city-approved devices, further characterizing them as hierarchical. MDTs and CB radios are a part of drivers’ mobile communication environment offering access to useful job-related information. Lease drivers do not get to choose which of these technologies is available in their cab, but all drivers make strategic, revenue-inspired choices about when to use these devices, which suggests that they work in a polymedia-ted setting. Although the information these official technologies provide offers certain advantages, in the end the choice of whether and when to use them is not significantly empowering nor is the communication drivers can engage in with them. Access to official, city-approved mobile technology may supply drivers with information to help them locate fares (and thereby income), but the power structure remains firmly in place with the city making the rules and the taxi companies serving as gatekeepers of information.
Despite their official quality, the Gandalf and CB radio provide valuable information for drivers and, when used in conjunction with a more personalized network device like a mobile phone, drivers can develop a strong sense of the city’s movements and rhythms as they relate to acquiring fares. Smaller, more organically formed communities appeared in conjunction with mobile phone usage among immigrant drivers.
Unofficial collaboration
Mobile phones are taxi drivers’ main tools for unofficial collaboration. Use of a mobile phone while driving is a violation of the rules and regulations for public chauffeurs in Chicago (City of Chicago, 2008); it is considered a risk to public safety. Nevertheless, many drivers use their mobile phones while driving and on work breaks. Since it is not a permitted communication technology for the study participants, I have deemed the collaboration that occurs via mobile phones as “unofficial.” As a result of this city policy and drivers’ fears of losing their public chauffeur licenses (and, hence, their jobs), it is possible that some participants may have held back when responding to questions about their mobile phone use on the job. Nevertheless, I did gather interesting information about mobile-phone-based collaboration on the job.
An important reason for talking on a mobile phone while driving is that less experienced drivers are seeking work advice such as directions, tips on where to find fares, and traffic updates. A few drivers also said utilizing the phone helps them to socialize on the job (companionship is important in a lonely job such as this). For example, “Zak,” a rookie driver from Somalia in his 20s, recalled that during his first 2 months on the job he often used his phone to get directions from friends/colleagues. After that time he knew the city well enough to transition from asking for directions to getting fare advice. He made phone inquiries for tips on “small events” (e.g., a club letting out) that will have taxi customers. He said the Gandalf provides information on “big events” (e.g., taxis needed at the airports) through mass messages, but his phone network provides tips on smaller, more local activities throughout the city.
Similarly, “Zayd,” a Pakistani fellow in his 30s, exclaimed, “Thank God for the cell phone!” when I asked him about using the mobile phone at work. Zayd had been driving a taxi for 5 months when we met at an airport. He shared that his mobile phone had been a considerable help to him while learning the job. The taxi he leased did not have a Gandalf, only a CB radio, and so the mobile phone is his most useful tool. He thought about a time, not too long ago, when mobile phones were not as ubiquitous as they are today. He said, “I learned [the job] the easy way” since he had the advantage of being able to call a friend for directions and other kinds of help on the job. A few rookie drivers marveled at the thought of how drivers previously learned to navigate the city streets without a mobile phone connecting them to experienced colleagues. As difficult as the early learning period can be for new taxi drivers, Zayd said he does not want a GPS device “because I won’t be able to remember [the streets].” He is determined to learn the city by heart rather than through GPS technology, but having access to colleagues via the mobile phone while he learns is critical for him. This collaborative strategy of using the phone for work advice helps with improving drivers’ incomes as well as job efficiency by getting cabs where they are needed, and aids in the challenging first few months for new taxi drivers.
Interestingly, drivers that talk with colleagues while driving indicated that they talk to the same people. At first I envisioned this as working in teams, little mobile nodes of two or three drivers helping each other during their shifts. But, while talking with “Radhi,” a Sudanese driver in his 30s, he mentioned that, “I cannot live without three-way calling.” When asked to elaborate he explained that he will talk on the phone with two drivers at the same time, and those two drivers are on the phone with two others, and so on. Rather than relying on a couple of close friends, it seems that some drivers form a larger collaborative network—a kind of elastic, mobile network of taxis covering Chicago, extending their eyes and ears across the city. Radhi calls in to this network when he needs tips on locating fares, traffic, etcetera. He said that at the beginning of his shift and during rush hour periods, few drivers are calling each other because they are busy with customers. But those who use this network are attempting to improve their earnings by getting on-the-ground information about where to find fares. Although Radhi calls just one or two people, the nature of the technology he and his colleagues use connects him into a broader network of information. I was unable to learn who is part of this network—that is, are all the people in this network fellow Sudanese drivers? Based on the findings discussed next, I would guess that they are, but without confirmation I cannot say for certain if they are all the same nationality or ethnicity.
These three examples demonstrate how drivers make deliberate decisions about which of the multiple communication devices to use and when. Their decisions are primarily based on which technology will supply information that will yield the most revenue. Zak chose the mobile phone to learn about minor activities where he might find fares and uses the Gandalf to find out about more substantial activities. Zayd did not have a Gandalf in his car and so he relied on his mobile phone. Radhi used his mobile phone’s three-way calling feature to help him access tips for locating fares from not only the two people he called, but also all of the people they called. Drivers negotiate multiple communication technologies for their work and their practice of choosing one technology over another for reasons unrelated to any pay-per-use costs or the devices’ technological capabilities, which illustrates the theory of polymedia within this labor community. The opportunity to make these choices creates some sense of control, but ultimately drivers remain relatively powerless in the industry.
Taxi drivers are the face of the taxi industry in Chicago but they are at the bottom of the industry hierarchy, vulnerable to taxi companies’ lease and fee charges, harassment from city workers such as police officers (Bruno & Hewitt, 2010a, 2010b), as well as to the effects of global events like 9/11. Drivers resist these forces by accessing information through their mobile phones. As Ling and Horst (2011) argue, mobile phones have the capacity to help users rearrange existing power structures but not necessarily eradicate them. Drivers were not changing the existing hierarchy, but those who used mobile phones for work were shaking up the system by empowering themselves with communication and information despite their relatively powerless position in the industry. Official communication devices offer drivers little control over the communication that they can engage in, though the devices remain useful sources of information for drivers. Many drivers exhibited resistant behaviors in order to assert control over the information they can access and create opportunities to earn more money by using mobile phones as an unofficial communication device.
The mobile phone is a driver’s tool for accessing a collaborative community of colleagues while on the road. This unofficial collaborative device allows those who use it to supplement or simply disregard official collaborative communication devices in order to do their jobs better. The benefits of mobile phone collaboration include personalized and timely information about fares, traffic, and directions. It also helps build community by enabling the sharing of professional beliefs and practices as well as companionship for this mobile group. However, mobile phone collaboration tended to be ethnic-based so drivers do not often communicate with people outside their ethnic group. In other words, drivers had numerous strong ties and a limited number of weak ties, or ties to people outside of their ethnic group.
Isolation
In observing behavior at the restaurants and airport lots, I rarely saw much mixing of ethnic groups while eating. I confirmed this observation through interviews. Sometimes drivers disagreed with my observation, but then at another point in the interview they would discuss their relationship with coworkers and inadvertently confirm my observation. Language was usually cited as the main reason for this preference, but lack of trust of other groups or harboring stereotypes from one’s home country also contributed.
Near the end of our interview Babu asked, “Do you have any big questions that you are afraid to ask?” I mentioned my observation about this tendency for ethnic groups to stick together rather than mix with other groups and he agreed, mentioning that he tends to talk to and socialize with other Indians. He said “No doubt,” that drivers stick to their own ethnic groups. He cited language as an important reason for these divisions as well as age. His boss, the owner of the medallion that he is driving, is from another country and apparently they get along well. They are on good working terms. However, Babu made no mention of socializing with this individual and this further reinforced data gathered from observation and other interviews. Zayd, who found roommates from an advertisement at a local mosque, lives with fellow Pakistanis and they are also the ones he most often calls for work advice. I asked “Nick,” an African man (he was vague about his precise country of origin) in his 40s, about this observation and he said that he does not like to let cultural differences disrupt his work or friendships, saying, “In America, you learn diversity,” suggesting a possible sense of obligation to accept diversity. When I asked who he tends to talk to on the job he responded, “Whoever friend you got,” but he later said he’ll prioritize people from his own ethnic background. When socializing on the phone to combat on-the-job boredom and fatigue he talks to other drivers, especially those that speak the same language as him. It is understandable that speaking in one’s own language is more relaxing than speaking in a nonnative language.
In addition to boredom, loneliness contributes to the need to communicate with others. As Luedke (2010) found, “the more efficiently drivers work, the lonelier the job becomes” (p. 8). In other words, the more fares a driver obtains in a certain timeframe, the more money he earns, but the more isolated he tends to feel. The constant mobility for job efficiency comes at the expense of developing social relationships. Just as Elaluf-Calderwood and Sorensen (2007) found that “human interaction is achieved through their [drivers’] mobile phone” (p. 263), I found that mobile phones alleviate some loneliness by facilitating communication with coworkers or friends/family. Omar, for example, was hesitant to tell me about his mobile phone usage, but eventually decided to “tell the truth” 4 and explained that he uses the mobile phone for companionship, discussing things like politics and (at the time in 2010) the World Cup.
For immigrant drivers whose families live in other countries there is an added dimension of isolation given a lack of familial companionship at home. “Aseef,” a 39-year-old veteran driver from Sudan, said there was “no reason to stay home” without his family there, which is part of why he works long hours. When Zak first came to Chicago he had just one friend but started meeting other drivers at a local Somali restaurant. He felt more comfortable, especially as a newcomer to the US, interacting with other Somalis because of their shared language and culture. Later, Zak assisted other newcomers he met at the restaurant after striking up a conversation at the restaurant and exchanging phone numbers. He explained that because of a distrust of outsiders, they tend not to exchange numbers (and thereby establish mobile communication) with people from other ethnicities.
Driving a taxi is inherently social and yet isolating. Opportunities for face-to-face interaction at certain immobile places combined with mobile phone communication helped drivers feel connected to others. However, the preference for communicating with people from the same ethnic group may have implications for the injustices that drivers face in Chicago’s taxi industry. By tending towards more insular and ethnic-based working communities within the larger labor community, they are missing an opportunity to develop cross-ethnic connections and, ideally, build a more robust labor community that might be able to unify and improve working conditions.
Conclusion
Similar to Wallis’s (2011) conclusions and Ling and Horst’s (2011) argument, I found that access to and use of a mobile phone does not automatically imbue taxi drivers with power and autonomy from forces that seem to be working against them, but it does help to shake up the industry’s hierarchy of control. The simple fact of having a choice, legal or not, for accessing information to improve earnings is a kind of power. The city asserts its control by regulating the kind of communication technologies that drivers may use and the taxi companies assert their influence by acting as gatekeepers of fare and traffic information for drivers. However the choice to use a mobile phone, despite rules against it, still exists and drivers regularly choose to use the phone in addition to the city-approved and taxi-company-provided devices. As some participants discussed, the thought of having to learn their job without the support of their work-based community via the mobile phone was distressing. These participants expressed relief that they have the option of using their phones for work. This choice of technology, their access to numerous communication technologies, and their ability to understand and successfully use each of them indicates the existence of a polymedia-ted work environment. But the power hierarchy with the city and taxi companies at the top leaving drivers with little industry influence remains the same despite the improved access to information that the mobile phone provides. Drivers may feel empowered by the communication choices they have, but there is no significant shift in industry hierarchy as a result of communication access—further supporting the current power differential, hierarchy, and decision-making process.
One option for drivers to use mobile technology to free themselves a little from some of the forces working against them is the ride service mobile phone app, Uber, founded in 2009 and launched in Chicago with traditional taxis in 2012. Uber’s tagline is “moving people” and originally began as an app providing black car service for riders. App users hail and pay for a taxi via their smartphone, and taxi drivers have an supplementary source of revenue given the additional access to fare information. However, Uber is a controversial addition to the professional driving industry in Chicago. Taxi companies in Chicago have sued Uber, claiming that Uber is profiting from the taxi companies’ names, brands, and reputations, and the service requires drivers to use smartphones, which is against city regulations (Rao, 2012). More recently, Uber announced to its “Chicago TAXI” drivers that they would be charged US$10.00 per week for data plans accompanying the iPhones that participating drivers are required to use (Yousef, 2014). Uber claims that drivers earn more revenues with the app by connecting them with additional passengers, but drivers argue that they wait longer for Uber customers and they get many cancellations, for which they are to be reimbursed but some drivers have claimed that they have not received that compensation from the company (Yousef, 2014). Uber at first appears to be an empowering addition to drivers’ polymedia-ted work environment by turning smartphones into a more direct connection to customers, but ultimately drivers still remain at the bottom of the industry hierarchy subject to city, taxi companies, and in the case of Uber, technology company regulations, fees, and information architectures.
Another possible solution to improve working conditions is to encourage more cross-ethnic communication. I found that drivers’ mobile and face-to-face communication tended to be ethnic-based, exhibiting a pattern of “bounded solidarity” (Palackal et al., 2011). There is a large diversity of ethnic and national backgrounds among Chicago’s taxi drivers so these ethnic-based communities within the taxi driver community as a whole are missing an opportunity to improve their influence by opening lines of communication across ethnicities.
Mobile phones can be effective tools for connection and relationship-building, but the kind of relationships created and negotiated among this study’s participants were a potential limitation if drivers (or other groups) want to improve their working conditions. As Granovetter (1973) showed, weak ties (or cross-ethnic ties) help communities thrive. Chicago’s taxi drivers are already using their mobile phones to combat isolation and to access information for improved earnings, but by minimizing their cross-ethnic ties they may be limiting their labor community’s potential strength. Knowledge is power in the taxi industry, and sharing it can create uncertainty about losing control (Skok, 2003). Yet, formal and informal mobile communication allows taxi drivers to “pool resources” and improve “responsive[ness] to changes in the environment” (Elaluf-Calderwood & Sorensen, 2008, p. 148). Uncertainty about cross-ethnic ties and losing power by sharing knowledge across ethnic groups may be the very kind of communication that could empower taxi drivers the most.
It is important to be cautious in the discussion of findings with regard to bounded solidarity. I had limited time and access with my participants and so I did not get a great level of detail regarding their ties. My outsider position as a White, unescorted, American female attempting to communicate with predominantly Muslim males from a variety of ethnic backgrounds presented limitations. That is, my data and thereby my interpretations, may be skewed according to the participants who were willing to talk with me. Although I was able to interview some nondriver industry professionals, I was not given permission to communicate with city employees who work in the industry and so the city’s voice is lacking throughout the study, aside from publicly available documents I obtained online. Moreover, my study is limited to a small sample of taxi drivers in one urban area, and therefore not generalizable.
The details about communication behaviors and patterns that I learned from the drivers contribute to our growing knowledge about mobile communication among mobile communities and the relationships therein. Specifically, this study has identified another type of community where the theory of polymedia applies, that is, labor communities, and has shown that while choice of technology may offer some sense of power, access to mobile communication technology does not necessarily result in significant changes in power structures within and surrounding a community. Other groups seeking to improve a social, political, and/or labor issue should identify how they are using mobile communication and consider the advantage of building and maintaining weak ties in order to remain strong and effective. Future research should aim to explore this pattern of isolation in mobile contexts. The complicated questions surrounding power in this local industry within a global economy also warrant more scholarly attention. For example, what are the different experiences of mobility with regard to taxis—for drivers, especially transnational drivers who may be moving in and out of the job, and for passengers? Comparing the experience of movement and communication between taxi drivers and their passengers would yield insights into how socioeconomic status and power dynamics influence notions of mobility and immobility.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my dissertation committee for their support on the research project from which is article is derived: Steve Jones, Zizi Papacharissi, Andrew Rojecki, Robert Bruno and Tracy Luedke.
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.