PERN launched its first Annual Workshop on Platform Economies in New York City in May 2019. More than 20 international scholars participated in the inaugural workshop, hosted by the Heilbroner Center at The New School and the Institute for Public Knowledge at NYU. The goal of the annual workshop is to explore ongoing and potential research on the ways in which socio-economic activity is being structured by platform economies. In order to promote open-ended questions, the workshop precludes written papers and paper presentations. Participants contribute primary source materials, visualizations, industry reports, investigative journalism, and works-in-progress for discussion and debate.
The framing question of the First Annual Workshop was: How does the term “platform economies” serve as a heuristic and how does it obscure certain relations or practices? What are the modes of monetization, capitalization, and economization that are generated by platform economies?