Staff Profile

Please note, I have experienced some technical difficulties publishing updates to this page. I am working to resolve this and will be updating this biography and information very soon. In the interim, my Google Scholar profile can be accessed here: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=trzrwWAAAAAJ&hl=en

Forthcoming changes to this profile will concern the Background text (this page here) in addition to additions of Research and Teaching.

If you are a Newcastle student or staff member and wish to get in touch; please do so through my Newcastle email address. Please also do feel free to get in touch if you want to discuss your research interests in relation to any of my work.

I am regrettably unable to accept any PhD supervision at this time due the fixed-term nature of my contract, ending in 2026. However, if you have ideas for PhD work on Local and Regional Development; digital labour geographies, or the lived experiences of economic geography, please do not hesitate to get in touch. I'm always excited to discuss new and exciting ideas with new and exciting people, even if I cannot supervise you at this current moment.

Apologies for any inconveniences caused by this.

- posted January 2026

I am a lecturer in Economic Geography here at Newcastle University.

My work focuses on platform work in relation to the city - specifically the intersections between urban geographies, labour geographies and the lived experiences of work that navigates them.

My interdisciplinary PhD thesis Labouring at the Interface: Exploring the rhythms and resistances of working in London’s food delivery gig economy combined a covert ethnography (wherein I worked for two leading food delivery platforms in London), and overt ethnography of the trade union representing their riders.

This direct, hands on experience with the work and unionisation elements demonstrated the high levels of skill workers develop and deploy in their daily lives, and how these interactions form the basis of subsequent resistance efforts.

I am currently turning the work into a monograph which is under contract with Bristol University Press.

Since completing my PhD studies, I have worked as a post-doctoral researcher at Royal Holloway, and Oxford University:

"Covid-19 mutual aid groups and their lessons for post-crisis community care". This study investigated the mutual aid practices people engaged in throughout the pandemic to support each other and survive. We produced a Manifesto for Mutual Aid, an interactive documentary and a feature-length documentary film alongside other academic journal outputs, all of which are available for free here - https://mutualaid.uk/ (Royal Holloway, 2021-2022)

"Just Transitions in Australia: Moving towards low carbon lives across policy, industry and practice". This study investigates the possibility and promise of transitioning away from fossil fuel and carbon heavy lives in Australia. The full report and shortened summary are available here: https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/projects/just-transitions-in-australia-moving-towards-low-carbon-lives-across-policy-industry-and-practice/ (Royal Holloway, 2021-2022)

"Fairwork". In this project, I worked across international contexts (UK, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Serbia, Albania, Philippines and Singapore) to investigate the lived experience of platform work internationally as part of a 250-person team spanning 38 countries. I worked with fellow researchers, workers, unions, government ministers, international organisations (like the World Bank and ILO) and companies (including Amazon, Deliveroo, Uber Eats, Just Eat and Stuart) to create positive changes for workers in the platform economy. The changes we have been part of making have improved the lives of hundreds of thousands of gig workers world-wide. The project website is available here https://fair.work/ (Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, 2018-2020; 2022-2024).

I completed my Undergraduate (BA Geography, 2012-2015) Masters (MA Cultural Geography, 2015-2016) and PhD (Geography and Management, 2016-2022) at Royal Holloway, University of London.

• Articles

  • Badger, A, Symon, G. Mobilisation and counter-mobilisation through the sociomaterial constitution of space in the food delivery gig economy. 2026. In Preparation.
  • Bock-Brown O, Badger A, Adey P. Winging it: visions, automation, and narrating alternative mobility futures. Mobilities 2025, 20(2), 255-270.
  • Alyanak O, Cant C, Lopez T, Badger A, Graham M. Platform work, exploitation, and migrant worker resistance: Evidence from Berlin and London. The Economic and Labour Relations Review 2023, 34(4), 667-688.
  • Mould, O, Cole, J, Badger, A, Brown, P. Solidarity, not charity: Learning the lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic to reconceptualise the radicality of mutual aid. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 2022, 47(4), 866-879. In Preparation.
  • Cole J, Badger A, Brown P, Mould O. Social Kropotkinism: The Best ‘New Normal’ for Survival in the Post COVID-19, Climate Emergency World?. Academic Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies 2022, 11(6), 1.
  • van Doorn N, Badger A. Platform Capitalism's Hidden Abode: Producing Data Assets in the Gig Economy. Antipode 2020, 52(5), 1475-1495.
  • Katta, S, Badger, A, Graham, M, Howson, K, Ustek-Spilda, F, Bertolini, A. (Dis)embeddedness and (de)commodification: COVID-19, UBer, and the unravelling logics of the gig economy. Dialogues in Human Geography 2020, 10(2), 203-207.

• Authored Book

  • Badger, A. RIDERS: living, working, and resisting work in the gig economy. Bristol University Press, 2026. In Preparation.

• Book Chapters

  • Badger A. It gets better with age: AI and the labour process in old and new gig–economy firms. In: Moore, P; Woodcock, J, ed. Augmented Exploitation Artificial Intelligence, Automation and Work. Pluto Press, 2021, pp.121-134.
  • van Doorn N, Badger A. Dual value production as key to the gig economy puzzle. In: Jeroen Meijerink, Giedo Jansen, and Victoria Daskalova, ed. Platform Economy Puzzles. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2021, pp.123-139.
  • Englert S, Graham M, Fredman S, du Toit D, Badger A, Heeks R, Van Belle J. Chapter 10: Workers, platforms and the state: The struggle over digital labour platform regulation. In: Drahokoupil, J; Vandaele, K, ed. A Modern Guide To Labour and the Platform Economy. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2021, pp.162-176.
  • Badger A, Woodcock J. Ethnographic Methods with Limited Access: Assessing Quality of Work in Hard to Reach Jobs. In: Wheatley, D, ed. Handbook of research methods on the quality of working lives. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2019, pp.135-146.

• Online Publication

  • Badger A, Brown P, Cole J, Kispert M, Mould O. Manifesto for Mutual Aid. 2022. Available at: https://pure.royalholloway.ac.uk/en/publications/manifesto-for-mutual-aid/.

• Reports

  • Adey P, Pink S, Raven R, Hadfield P, Badger A, Strengers Y, Sharp D, Bock-Brown O, Lyall B, Martin R, Wright S, Dahlgren K, Robinson N, Hansen N, Willment N. Just Transitions in Australia: Moving toward low carbon lives across policy industry and practice. Australia: Royal Holloway University & Monash University, 2022.
  • Badger A. PhD Thesis: Labouring at the interface: exploring the rhythms and resistances of working in London's food delivery gig economy. London: Royal Holloway, University of London, 2021.
  • Ustek Spilda F, Heeks R, Graham M, Bertolini A, Salem N, Katta S, Fredman S, Howson K, Ferrari F, Neerukonda M, Taduri P, Badger A, Aguera P. The Gig Economy and Covid-19: Looking Ahead. University of Oxford, 2020. 9781917148689.