Aspirational technologies of the (disabled) self: Confessional, self-examinatory, and ascetic masculinities among food delivery riders on China’s digital platforms
2026-07-21
Digital platforms are increasingly offering new employment and social participation opportunities for people with disabilities (PWDs). This study examines the intersections of digital platforms, disability, and masculinity in China. Drawing on in-depth interviews and ethnography with 12 disabled male food delivery riders, it explores how platform-based delivery work serves as a site to negotiate masculinity and social recognition. The findings indicate that platforms not only offer relatively accessible and flexible income opportunities, enabling participants to engage in socially valued work and gendered responsibility, but also mobilize aspirational discourses that promise future inclusion and moral recognition while demanding intensified temporal discipline, bodily endurance, and the willingness to “eat bitterness.” Thus, digital platforms constitute an ambivalent space where inclusion and constraint coexist, enabling gendered self-formation while introducing new forms of discipline. Ultimately, this study calls for greater attention to the challenges faced by PWDs in digital labor.