Contentious Worlds on the Streets: Networks, Mobilities and Belonging of Uber and Taxi Drivers in Berlin and Istanbul

• Applicant: Dr. Muhammet Esat Tiryaki
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research
• Term: since 2026
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 577355948

: This project investigates how mobilities and belonging are reconfigured under the platform economy by examining the everyday practices of Uber and taxi drivers in Berlin and Istanbul. It argues that in the platform city, algorithms organise mobilities, and mobilities in turn define how belonging is experienced and contested. Drawing on the sociology of mobility and platform labour studies, it addresses three core questions: 1) How do Uber and taxi drivers navigate and appropriate urban space through mobility practices that shape their belonging? 2) How do these experiences diverge across two culturally and institutionally distinct cities? 3) How do platform infrastructures challenge, displace, or integrate into state-centred mobility regimes, reconfiguring the politics of mobility? Uber drivers' mobilities are organised by opaque, globally networked algorithmic systems that assign value to zones, distribute labour, and mediate visibility and interaction. In contrast, taxi drivers operate within long-standing municipal infrastructures—conditioned by licensing systems and regulated fares, but also by the shifting mobilities of Uber drivers that algorithmically redefine urban space and demand. These contrasting regimes structure how drivers circulate, wait, and work, and how they are seen, regulated, and recognised within the urban landscape. Theoretically, the project builds on "the new mobilities paradigm" (Sheller and Urry, 2006), which reconceptualises mobilities as relational and embodied, rather than merely spatial or infrastructural. Berlin and Istanbul offer a strategic comparative frame across distinct political and regulatory contexts. In Berlin, Uber and taxi drivers form distinct labour classes within a regulated framework. In Istanbul, Uber is not a separate labour class but an identity adopted within the existing taxi driver category. These differences reveal how transnational platforms are locally adapted, contested, and negotiated. Methodologically, the project uses a comparative, mixed-methods design: 1) ethnographic fieldwork—including participant observation, go- and ride-alongs, and interviews; and 2) spatial network analysis to trace drivers' daily routes, waiting patterns, and rhythms of circulation. The project argues that platform labour generates new, often conflicting forms of belonging—shaped by encounters with passengers, platforms, and urban spaces such as streets, hubs, and informal waiting zones. These interactions produce frictions between digitally mediated and traditional forms of work, highlighting the need for a labour-sociological perspective attentive to precarity, informalisation, and structural inequality. Ultimately, the project positions the experiences of Uber and taxi drivers in Berlin and Istanbul to understand how platform economies reorganise mobilities, belonging, and labour relations under divergent regulatory conditions.

• DFG Programme: Position