@inproceedings{10.1145/3772318.3791097,
author = {Kapania, Shivani and Yang, Tianling and Abdelkadir, Nuredin Ali and Scheuerman, Morgan Klaus and Miceli, Milagros and Taylor, Alex S and Fox, Sarah E},
title = { 'The plan is just survival': Data Work in Kenya and the Regime of Entrapment},
year = {2026},
isbn = {9798400722783},
publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
address = {New York, NY, USA},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3772318.3791097},
doi = {10.1145/3772318.3791097},
abstract = {The rapid expansion of the AI industry relies heavily on the production, verification, and maintenance of data, otherwise known as "data work". Companies outsource and offshore this work through global AI supply chains that operate under exploitative conditions. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with Kenyan data workers across platforms and BPOs, this paper examines how such conditions take shape and persist. We argue that workers are caught within a regime of entrapment, a system of interconnected mechanisms that make it difficult for workers to leave or improve their positions. These mechanisms include the push to invest in the promise of ‘AI’ jobs, the use of precarious contracts to govern workers, the capture of regulatory institutions, and the exploitation of global labor arbitrage. Using complementary lenses of neoliberal governmentality, precarity, and supply chain capitalism, we analyze why labor mobilization in this sector remains uniquely constrained. We conclude by outlining an orientation for research and scholarly practice that can support workers’ organizing efforts and contest the structural conditions sustaining this regime.},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems},
articleno = {936},
numpages = {17},
keywords = {AI data work, data workers, outsourcing, AI supply chain, worker exploitation, critical HCI, political economy},
location = {
},
series = {CHI '26}
}