The spaces of work and labour: Gendered perspectives on the local and the global
6th European Labour History Conference, University of Barcelona, 16-19 June 2026
Deadline for submissions 1 July 2025
The Feminist Labour History Working Group of the European Labour History Network (ELHN) invites submissions for its sessions on the theme of “The spaces of feminist labour history: gendered perspectives on the local and the global” to be held at the 6th European Labour History Conference in Barcelona, 16-19 June 2026.
The feminist labour history network in Barcelona aims to capture the history of the world of gendered work through exploring the places where work happens. It focuses on the interconnection of the different sites and spaces of work, considering the locations and the physical surroundings in which work has occurred in different times across the world from a gender perspective. The sessions aim to address the interconnection between work happening in private and public spaces across the globe, and in spaces situated at the core and even beyond the margins of the world of work. They could interrogate the political geography of work, that is, the ways in which the performance of work and the movement of workers between different sites of work could strengthen, reproduce, challenge, or alter power relations.
We invite papers addressing the spaces of feminist labour history including (but not limited to) the following topics of interest:
- Workplaces from the kitchen to the plantation; varieties of spaces and sites, e.g., the factory, the household etc.
- Moving between different spaces of work /multi-space workers, e.g., workers, who perform work during part of the year in agriculture and in industry.
- Unequal development and the spatiality of work
- Workplaces interconnected across space, and trans-local connections between work in different places (“chains of labour”).
- The materiality of work: the role of objects in the performance of work.
- Work in particularly demanding, and hostile spaces.
- The changing ’natural’ environments and rythmns of workplaces, e.g., during the day and the seasons.
- The role of solidarity networks.
- Unpaid/reproductive/care work and their spaces.
- Migrant labour in both domestic and international migration
We plan to collaborate with ELHN Working Groups: Workers’ Education, Labour Migration History, Workplaces: Pasts and Presents, and Labour and Empire.
We further draw attention to our specialized international conference on “The body and health in feminist labour history,” organized by the Feminist Labour History Working Group and hosted by the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, to be held 14-16 October 2026. Please consider participating in both conferences by submitting a different or complementary paper proposal to each.
Please send a 500-word abstract and a short academic CV (max 500 word) in one Word file to WG coordinators Eszter Varsa varsae@ceu.edu and Eloisa Betti eloisa.betti@unipd.it by July 1, 2025. The proposal should include name, surname, current affiliation and contact details of the proponent. The subject of the email needs to be: “Feminist labour history ELHN 2026”.
If you have any further questions, do not hesitate to contact the coordination committee:
Eloisa Betti: eloisa.betti@unipd.it
Natalia Jarska: njarska@ihpan.edu.pl
Françoise F. Laot: francoise.laot@univ-paris8.fr
Eszter Varsa: varsae@ceu.ed