Delivering as the Crow Flies: Navigating the Neoliberal City as a Platform-based Courier in Amman

It is around 7 pm on a chilly January night, when I enter a fast-food restaurant in ʿAbdūn circle. Inside, very few customers are sitting at the tables. Still, the restaurant is bustling with a constant flow of delivery drivers in bright orange or green vests, respectively bearing the logos of the Talabat or Careem food delivery platforms. Some of them are waiting at the counter, their large and colourful bags laid on the ground or on the surrounding tables; some others are standing outside, sipping a can of coffee or smoking a cigarette. Despite the rush, the mood is light. […] I go outside and grab a coffee at the local shop next door, then stand by the garage entrance where couriers usually line up their motorcycles. There, two Captains arrive (in Arabic, Kabbātīn, as Careem calls its drivers, or Heroes as Talabat calls them, is used to designate more broadly any gig worker in the delivery and ride-hailing sector): the first one is wearing an orange vest, while the other wears a green one. They park and immediately start teasing each other over which of the two platforms, Talabat or Careem, is best. The other couriers standing outside the restaurant join in and comment on each argument, until one of them shouts out: “Come on! Really that’s not a life! I’ve been with Talabat for a year, okay, and they keep sending you wherever and never pay your way back! You drive for free! It’s impossible!” Suddenly, he turns toward me and says: “You see, we’d rather stay here and enjoy a coffee, and smoke!” Everyone laughs. More and more drivers arrive until the parking entrance is completely saturated: whenever a Captain gets onto his scooter and tries to manoeuvre out of the de facto parking space, another courier stands in his way and pretends to pick up a fight with him, before letting him go back to work.

Located in one of Amman’s most active delivery hot-spot I had the chance to observe, this scene drawn from a fieldnote written during three months of ethnographic fieldwork (January – March 2025) with platform-based couriers offers a short yet dense view of the everyday flow of interactions which delivery drivers experience while navigating the city. As one could argue that platform economy has become a central force in reconfiguring urban services and labour – notably through the massification of gig work – in most cities across the globe (Srnicek 2017), this research, which began as part of a Master thesis and is now being pursued as a doctoral thesis, has the empirical and theoretical advantage of looking at platform work within the localised and spatialised contexts in which it unfolds. Following on other studies about platform work in the Global South, I would suggest that examining spatial practices and representations of couriers in Amman compels us to pay attention to the heterogeneity of labour situations that have widely been described in Euro-American context as atomising, precarious and mostly informal.

This paper offers an analysis of couriers’ daily practises and representations based on a series of encounters that took place in Amman’s arena of delivery services. We understand this “arena” as the spatial, socio-economic and political set of constraints within which couriers’ subjective experience and acts of appropriation of space and mobility occur. By presenting extracts from observations, free discussions and interviews conducted in Arabic with mostly male couriers of various age – between 18 and 55 years old – during the winter of 2025 in Amman, this paper also questions the way delivery drivers construct a particular sense of (in)justice in regard to their exploitative relations with the platforms.

Paid as the Crow Flies: Making a Living from Platform-based Delivery

In Jordan, the development of platform-based delivery services traces back to the mid-2010s with the arrival of major regional platforms such as Talabat and Careem from the Gulf – respectively Kuwait and the UAE – which were later challenged by “proudly Jordanian” platforms such as MyThings and Offerat. The sector, just like ride-hailing services, is most often promoted and assessed in terms of its impact on employment opportunities for “poor and vulnerable youth” (ILO 2023) – the Ministry of Digital economy and entrepreneurship (MoDEE) claims the food delivery sector employs a total of 25,000 individuals nationwide (Jordan News 2023).

In July 2021, Talabat ended the fixed-price-per-delivery system which had been standard since its launch in Jordan in 2017, replacing it with a kilometre-based remuneration described as more “flexible” and “fair” by the company’s logistic manager (Rahma 2021). As the press coverage of the events testifies, this decision was strongly contested by groups of delivery workers, mostly organised via social media, who conducted multiple sit-ins and short period strikes that spread across the years (2021, 2022 and 2024). These protests hinged on a contestation of the new calculating system for the distance travelled by couriers, which is used to determine their remuneration per delivery, as workers are now paid as the crow flies (ʿal-kīlū hawāʾī), so to speak. Omar, a platform-based courier in his forties who worked as a ride-hailing driver before, comments: “You wanna know how much for the distance? The clock starts at 1 dinar and 20 bucks, then it’s 14 piaster per aerial kilometre… You understand what it means, ‘aerial’? It’s not what you actually walk on the street, it’s… like that [he mimics a bird] … flying!”. Without mentioning the previous protests, he explains the issue of drivers’ remuneration by playfully highlighting the tension between the cost of being “on the street” and the platform’s compensation of drivers, as if they were “flying”.

Omar is joined by Ibrahim, a fellow courier who is also his relative, as they further describe the gap in calculating their next move, since drivers must consider the platforms control mechanisms over their mobility. When asked how they usually choose where to start their shift, they explain: (Omar) “Well, you open the app where you are, it must be somewhere with restaurants right? I mean, most of them work with Talabat, so…”; (Ibrahim) “It’s the location, it’s the app itself that delimitates your position. For instance, say you work in that neighbourhood, then you can move to another neighbourhood as long as you are in ‘the zone’, meaning in Amman.” In this zone where the main two platforms provide delivery services to “the whole Amman region […] it’s the app that sends you out and brings you back” (Omar). As such, couriers’ flexible mobility brings about its share of costs, as Omar continues: “Actually, from the area you’re in, you can’t go out without an order. I mean, say if the Seventh [circle] was more active than Tabarbour… I wouldn’t be able to leave Tabarbour for the Seventh just to find a job there, because I would lose fuel, I’d lose the pressure, I’d end up exhausted.”

The workers’ inability to follow on demand “anywhere, anytime” is at the heart of couriers’ material issue with the hypermobility regime imposed by platforms (Abel et al. 2021). If the drivers’ freedom of being their own boss depends on deciding where and when to work – as the platforms advertising campaigns claim – such promise ultimately comes down to couriers’ ability to remain on the move for long shifts and at minimum cost, while calculating fuel consumption as well as places with the most demand pressure, and avoiding body exhaustion.

Indeed, platforms’ marketing promise of instant delivery superimposes a highly asymmetrical system of industrial relations between couriers and their clients (Dieuaide et Azaïs 2020). As a result of the platforms’ position in the circulation of information between offer and demand, the drivers who actually provide the service turn out to be dependent on the platform and dispossessed of their ability to plan and anticipate their navigation throughout the city. Thus, despite their hypermobility, platform-based couriers appear captive in a set of exploitative economic relations, which can only be rendered tolerable as a temporary situation: “(QL) When did you start working for the platforms? (Omar) Since 2020; (Ibrahim) For me it was 2022. […] (QL) And do you know for how long you’ll keep working on the platforms? (Ibrahim) No, no… I mean that job is… it’s a secondary job. It shouldn’t be your main activity, you can’t count on this for the future.”

Because it pays earnings that bear no relation to the actual costs of couriers’ deliveries, and forces them to make their way around the city at a pace and towards destinations dictated by algorithms, the exploitative and bodily oppressing regime of platform labour is commonly described as unfair and unsustainable; it is perceived as a job only until something better comes along, even after years of doing it. This seeming contradiction reveals a condition of precariousness that is not limited to forms of immediate uncertainties as to where to go and how many deliveries will be done in one shift; but also hints to more durable forms of social and economic insecurity with long-lasting occupational continuity, fostered by an economy of debt which is prevalent among delivery and ride-hailing drivers in order to purchase (or lease) the most cost-effective vehicle, whether that be an electric or hybrid car or a scooter.

Free as a Bird: Sense of Freedom and Circulating the Neoliberal City

As I meet up with Nour ad-Din, a university student working part-time in a restaurant, he mentions a few YouTube channels that feature delivery workers during their shifts: “You should definitely check this out, it’s basically Captains who show everything that happens during their shifts. And there’s a lot of videos!”

One of these content creators is [Haitham], who produced nearly a hundred videos of delivery vlogs across Amman for almost two years. These videos, recorded with a dashcam, picture the flow of deliveries during a four to eight-hour shift, punctuated by long minutes of waiting in between orders: “(Haitham in a vlog) For those who tell me that the videos are too long, or others who say they’re too short… […] I cut as much as I can. If I just show you when ‘I arrive at the restaurant’ and ‘I deliver,’ it loses its charm, right? You have to show the journey, the struggles”.

The creator’s comments and editing does in fact exhibit the city’s landscapes, its roads, hills and bridges, its most iconic buildings and wall paintings, as well as the congested flow of cars, trucks and taxis with whom they share the lanes. Considering the “multiple meanings of domination created by acts of appropriation” (Lüdtke 2016) on the part of delivery workers, I would argue that these videos, while explicitly showing and narrating the spatial-economic constraints of the job, also render them – at least partially – viable through the “charm” of Amman’s décor. In producing, consuming and sharing these video contents, it seems that Amman’s couriers appropriate their working conditions by reproducing the neoliberal figure of the Captain, depicting and praising the sense of freedom they experience as they circulate the city. However, this “freedom in labour” narrative is notably transformed by couriers’ content creators as these images are constantly intertwined with accounts of “struggles” and stories of the difficulties they face.

In another video, [Haitham] drives on a three-lane road in Amman’s periphery at sunset – “The weather is great right? Really beautiful, guys I swear”. He circulates at high speed between cars. The landscape showcases the green hills surrounding the city in February: he hums melodically “Ya salām, look at this view it’s magnificent (God has willed it).” After he stops at a traffic light, he comments in a joking tone: “Finally the lights turned green! Guys, I’ve been stopped here for years! Seriously it was so long, I forgot I was sitting on the scooter! I was scared I wouldn’t escape this!” Time pressure and quest for speed are often held in contrast with other professional drivers – notably the clearly identifiable taxi drivers in their yellow cars – to underline the agile driving practices (tazarrwaq) of delivery motorcycle drivers navigating traffic jams and narrow streets. Picturing the Captains’ driving skills on social media is also a matter of exposing the risks they face on the road, along with dispensing advice on how to minimise such risks and properly maintain vehicles.

Hence, I would argue that looking at the way couriers stage themselves at work enables researchers to further develop a more nuanced understanding of what renders the unfairness of gig work for platforms tolerable. Furthermore, it seems that delivery workers actively mobilise the neoliberal narrative of “being your own boss” to produce and promote, through social media networks, a symbolically valuable professional identity of almost exclusively male drivers, young and old, sharing representations and practices of moving through Amman where freedom is always mingled with bodily risks, exhaustion and economic difficulties.

Back to the Nest? Networking and the Art of Settling in

I met Zaid, a young Captain, at a fast-food restaurant close to the Second Circle. As I used to have lunch there, I noticed the same team of couriers standing by the front of the restaurant, collecting orders from the neighbouring shops in their platform bags, and consistently returning back to the front door of that same restaurant. Inside, I witnessed a certain familiarity while interacting with the staff. One day, as I engage with Zaid, the youngest delivery driver of the team, he explains: “I’ve been on the platforms since 2021. Here, I work for the restaurant. There’s another guy you have seen maybe, doing deliveries, he is older, his son actually works in the kitchen. Everyone at the restaurant has someone in his family working deliveries you know!”

As we discuss, another young courier arrives with a Talabat bag on his scooter. I recognise him from the regulars – his name is Mohammad. Intrigued by my interest in delivery platform labour, both young men start telling me about the employment situation in the sector: “(Mohammad) Delivering, it’s easy. People have to work two jobs, so a lot of them register on the platforms. (Zaid) Around here, we even have policemen doing that. Over there down the street, there is a guy who works for the intelligence… (Mohammad, laughing) And now, he’s doing deliveries!”

As platform-based delivery remains embedded in the local economy and social space of Amman, scholars might find it relevant to analyse the interpersonal ties that workers may have or build with fellow couriers and restaurant staff, anchored in specific locations across the city. For instance, Zaid and Mohammad go to and return from the same location near the Second circle daily. There, they personally know the people working in these restaurants and they gain access to additional delivery orders which are not mediated by platforms, but rather by the restaurant staff who receives phone orders from regular clients. This art of settling in seems mostly to depend on the fact that a number of restaurants do not rely solely on platforms to accommodate their deliveries, but continue to receive traditional phone orders and thus seek available couriers that would take orders directly from them. As far as delivery drivers are concerned, I would argue that this hybrid delivery system can be an opportunity to ensure a steadier supply of labour while avoiding the unpredictability of the platforms’ mobility regime and orders distribution. Certain couriers then combine platform-based deliveries with localised and restaurant-based jobs, to which they gain access by mobilising their personal social capital, which all drivers do not possess equally.

This “settling-in” strategy, along with the strengthening of the drivers’ relations with restaurant staffs, builds upon what some couriers mentioned as the “professional culture” of delivery drivers, which reflects their experience of the job and in the art of occupying specific spaces. To do so, couriers commonly rely on what A. Bayat (2010) calls “passive networking”, which refers to “instantaneous communications between atomized individuals, which are established by tacit recognition of their commonalities directly in public spaces or indirectly through mass media.” (p.22) The scene exposed in the introduction could be interpreted as an expression of this network, which relies on the identification of an independent worker as one of the delivery Captains, sharing a set of representations and practices, thus opening a temporary space to discuss labour conditions and put the job on hold. In addition, online communities, such as Facebook or WhatsApp groups, also play an important role in the circulation of platform-related knowledge and labour organisation in between couriers, as spaces of relative autonomy where delivery drivers exchange shifts, second-hand equipment, while also discussing job opportunities and grievances against the platforms.

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My master thesis focused on daily platform-based couriers’ practices in Amman, aiming at documenting their labour routines and trying to understand why and how they managed to last for years in a job that has been widely described in other parts of the world as relying on sets of exploitative legal and economic relations. As I moved beyond the simplistic “survival” explanation and tried to take the couriers at their word when they were sharing their grievances and their excitement about delivering through Amman, mobility has progressively become a heuristic entry point in order to analyse their labour situations.

As a PhD student, my intent is now to further investigate the many ways workers mobilise space in providing various urban services – either transport, delivery, waste collection or street cleaning – all while being “on the move”. Indeed, the platformisation of urban services in Amman along with the developmentalist rhetoric of achieving social justice through flexible forms of labour extends and relies upon what scholars have analysed as a “neoliberal assemblage” of urban production (Parker 2009), directly impacting the ways its workers and inhabitants move, consume, conceive and experience the city.

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Bayat, Asef. 2010. Life as Politics: How Ordinary People Change the Middle East. ISIM Series on Contemporary Muslim Societies. Amsterdam University Press.

Dieuaide, Patrick, et Christian Azaïs. 2020. « Platforms of Work, Labour, and Employment Relationship: The Grey Zones of a Digital Governance ». Frontiers in Sociology 5 (2). https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2020.00002.

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Lüdtke, Alf. 2016. « La domination comme pratique sociale ». Traduit par Alexandra Oeser. Sociétés contemporaines N° 99-100 (3): 17‑63. https://doi.org/10.3917/soco.099.0017.

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À propos de l’auteur/About the author:

Doctorant en sociologie et études urbaines, Quentin Lacmari est associé à l’Ifpo et au Centre de recherches internationales (CERI). Il prépare actuellement une thèse sous la direction d’Éric Verdeil à Sciences Po et la co-direction de Lilian Mathieu à l’École normale supérieure de Lyon, intitulée Travail en mouvement(s) : Précarité, mobilité et (dé)mobilisation des livreurs de plateforme et ramasseurs de déchets à Amman (Jordanie).

Quentin Lacmari is a doctoral candidate in sociology and urban studies at the Center for International Studies (CERI), and an associate PhD student at the French Institute for the Near East (Ifpo). He is currently preparing a thesis under the supervision of Éric Verdeil at Sciences Po and the co-supervision of Lilian Mathieu at the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, initially entitled: Labour on the Move: Precarity, Mobility, and the Politics of Urban (Re)Production among Platform Delivery Workers and Waste-Pickers in Amman (Jordan).

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