Year: 2026
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Short-term rental (STR) accommodations have taken on a new cultural and economic prominence since the rise of digital platforms such as Airbnb, HomeAway, and VRBO opened up STR marketing and transactions to a wide range of operators and customers. As STR platforms re-spatialize hotel services, their impact on the indispensable work of cleaning remains poorly understood. Through content analysis and participant interviews, this dissertation investigates the experiences of the workers who are hired to clean STR properties, the STR operators who hire them, and the role of technology in these experiences—including both generic tech tools and specialized platforms that target STR cleaning. Even STR cleaning workers who are not users of STR platforms must contend with the way these platforms shape the realities of their work, from the spatial distribution of their workplaces to the temporal demands of their hours, to the skills that are sought after by their employers. Being situated within the technology ecosystem of major digital platforms, STR cleaning has become a fertile ground for the creation of specialized technology products which leverage the data shared by STR platforms to automate certain managerial processes. Developers of specialized STR cleaning platforms must develop strategies to respond to the spatial frictions of the place-dependent labour they seek to manage, resulting in the spatial production of platforms. Examining the place-specific labour of STR cleaners within shifting spatial divisions of STR labour reveals not only the limits of techno-managerial systems, but also the valued skills of embodied attention and discretion that experienced cleaners bring to STR operations. Operators laud ‘cleaners who care’ as site managers, while cleaners employ diverse strategies in response to the special demands of their STR clients. This research also investigates who performs this labour and why? An intersectional analysis of STR cleaning workers illuminates a persistent gender-division of labour, despite the apparent erosion of a hegemonic heteronormative gender binary in the wider society. While cleaning remains highly stigmatized, for many STR cleaners this work represents a refuge from the violence and exclusion they face in other sectors due to their gender, sexuality, age, and/or (dis)ability. While still acutely precarious, I argue that cleaning labour as ‘hidden labour’ out of the normative gaze offers some marginalized workers a vital space of maneuver. The dissertation unpacks the role of platforms in transforming the spatial and temporal dimensions cleaning labour for modern tourism accommodation rentals.
Source: TSpace (University of Toronto)
Author: Goyette, Kiley
Institution: University of Toronto
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7203963050