⚒️ Doctoral Schools specialist course Labour, Mobilization, and the Politics of Work ✏️
📅 Date & Time: December 10-12, 09:00-18:00
📍 Location: Ghent University
✍ Registration: https://event.ugent.be/registration/labourmobilisationpoliticswork2425
This doctoral course invites PhD students to critically engage with the interdisciplinary analysis of work. We will look into identities and struggles of workers, emphasizing the importance of participatory research approaches. It challenges conventional views that marginalize workers and position researchers as neutral observers, arguing instead for active participation in knowledge production. The course will examine the interconnectedness between labour mobilisation and the rise of precarious jobs, informal contracts, and flexible working conditions. It aims to provide PhD candidates with the necessary tools to research and analyse the world of paid and unpaid work. In a world dominated by neoliberal ideologies that exacerbate inequalities and erode workers' rights, this course seeks to refocus attention on workers' experiences and agency. More than just an academic pursuit, this course is committed to fostering research that is both academically rigorous and socially impactful, inspiring early career researchers to contribute to a more equal and democratic society.
📌Programme
Day 1: Intersectional analysis of work: class, gender and race in and beyond the global workplace (10th of December)
• Social reproduction and globalisation of production (Dr Alessandra Mezzadri, SOAS, UK)
• In and Against the Ecological Crisis: Working-Class Environmentalism between Workplace and Community (Dr Lorenzo Feltrin, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice – Geneva Graduate Institute, IT/CH)
Day 2: Participatory and movement-relevant research methods (11th of December)
• Decolonial and Participatory Research Approaches: Beyond Methods (Dr Adriana Moreno-Cely, VUB, BE)
• Movement-relevant research methods (Dr Levi Gahman, Liverpool University, UK)
• Counter-mapping conventional geographies of work, production and value (Dr Katharina Grueneisl, University of Nottingham & Institut de Recherche sur le Maghreb Contemporain, UK/TU)
Day 3: Workers' research, activism and organising (12th of December)
• Workers' inquiry and class composition (Dr Jamie Woodcock, Notes From Below/KCL, UK)
• Reproductive labour and union organising in Belgium and Georgia (Dr Sigrid Vertommen, UGent & University of Amsterdam, BE/NL)
• Participant-led research workshops (UGent PhD students)
Who?
PhD students, postdocs, organisers, activists, labour unionists and anyone else interested in the course. This course is organized for social science, humanities and non-social science disciplines, but we particularly invite business students who wish to engage with critical approaches to work/labour. We also welcome international and exchange students. Everyone is welcome. No registration fee is required!
Further information https://www.ugent.be/doctoralschool/en/doctoraltraining/courses/specialistcourses/labour-mobilisation-politics-work2425 and poster attached. 📎
Registration deadline is 25 November 2024.
Organised by PhD students and postdocs of the Department of Conflict and Development Studies; contact for questions and queries: fayrouz.yousfi@ugent.be; allan.souzaqueiroz@ugent.be.