The Sharing Economy between Work and Leisure: An Exploratory Inquiry

Over the last decade, platforms in the "sharing" economy have enabled private individuals to sell or lease their goods, skills or labour through online services. This article seeks to describe the activities that these individuals pursue on such platforms, and to account for the meanings they give them. We build upon fieldwork that combines quantitative data analysis and interviews with suppliers on three websites (A Little Market, Drivy, Welkeys). We show that sharing economy platforms are only marginally a place for full-time work but instead provide a space where varied and pluralistic forms of activity unfold, at the overlap between the spheres of work and leisure. The core of the activity on sharing platforms appears to be a renewed form of the side jobs ("travail a-cote") studied by Florence Weber or the alternative forms of work ("autre travail") highlighted by Patrice Flichy, part of it linked closely with individual career paths and the labour market (entrepreneurship, transitions), another part associated with hobbies, leisure and the domestic economy.