A virtual workshop for graduate students organised by the Oxford University Labour History Group
25-26 May 2021
Call for Papers
The events of the past year have brought into sharp perspective the long-term issue of labour precarity. Across time and space, people have been subject to precarious existences characterised by the absence of regular income, job security, predictability, and welfare. Race, gender, and class emerge as unmistakably important dynamics when thinking about these questions. This workshop organised by the Oxford University Labour History Group will provide a space for graduate students from across disciplines to share their research, perspectives, and methodologies.
We welcome submissions that touch on one or more of the following themes, but these are only suggestions:
● Work and well-being
● Work and workplaces
● Wages
● Regulation
● Gender
● Race
● Domestic work
● Unions and associations
● Discipline and coercion
● Child labour
● Migration
● Unorganised labour/informal economies
● Transnational and global histories of labour
We seek perspectives from various disciplines, including (but not limited to) history, economics, development, and human geography. Interdisciplinary perspectives are welcome. Papers that discuss issues of intersectionality, including race, gender, and class, are encouraged, and we welcome submissions that study female, child, non-white labourers, and the Global South.
The workshop will be held over two afternoons, and will include a roundtable discussion with invited speakers. Accepted papers will be grouped into panels of two or three with a discussant for each panel. We also invite our speakers to contribute blogs that will be featured on our website.
Graduate students interested in presenting at the workshop are asked to send an abstract of no more than 300 words and a brief (1–2 page) CV to oxlabhist@gmail.com by 2 April 2021. We strongly encourage submissions from students from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds. Please contact us if you have any queries.
Organisers: James Evans, Urvi Khaitan