Objetos enredados y Big Mac’s: Movilidad y contingencia en el reparto de comida a domicilio

Mobility, as a central process in platform economies, is crucial for understanding food delivery and its impact on the work of delivery riders. Unlike other studies that focus on algorithms or labor conditions, this research follows the object that drives the riders: food. Specifically, we begin with the Big Mac, a food item whose movement relies on a complex network of interactions involving delivery platforms, urban infrastructures, workers, and digital objects. Through an ethnographic and sociotechnical approach, we show how food, in its journey through the city, is both shaped by — and shapes — urban contingencies, the adaptive strategies of riders, and the limitations of existing infrastructures. In this process, riders act as intermediaries between algorithms and urban landscape, adapting their actions to overcome obstacles, failures, and unforeseen circumstances, thereby safeguarding the properties of the Big Mac despite logistical challenges and environmental contingencies.