Diskarte as Vernacular Agency: Relational–Moral Labor and Ambivalent
Survival in Filipino Platform Work
Jose Cris O. Sotto
Centro Escolar University Manila, Philippines
Polytechnic University of the Philippines, Manila
Abstract
This study examines diskarte as a vernacular grammar of survival through which Filipino gig workers navigate the uncertainties of platform-mediated labor. Based on participatory qualitative research with ride-hailing, delivery, and freelance workers in the Philippines, the study conceptualizes diskarte as a fluid, relational, and ethically inflected form of agency. Workers enact diskarte through communicative calibration, affective regulation, relational reciprocity, and ethical boundary-work, revealing ambivalence as a normal operating condition rather than a contradiction. They continually weigh livelihood, obligation, care, and moral judgment while negotiating algorithmic control, reputational risk, and economic precarity. The article extends the Diskarte Continuum Framework and shows how Diskarte offers a culturally grounded lens for understanding how Global South workers act resourcefully under constraint, with implications for Critical Discourse Analysis and relational–moral forms of reasoning.
Keywords: Diskarte, platform economy, ambivalence, vernacular agency, Filipino digital labor