Call for Participants: 

Labour/power: constructing workers, markets, and the meaning of work

Critical Geography Conference: How Power Happens

Temple University, Philadelphia, PA

7-9 November 2014

Organizers: Katie Mazer and Caitlin Henry 

 

This session broadly interrogates the intersection of labour and power. Labour-power has long been a critical concept for anyone interested in critical geographies of work and capitalism. Here, we invite submissions from scholars, activists, and others interested in a broader discussion of labour and power: one that interrogates the broad constellation of institutions and social formations that make and govern—and, in turn, are made and governed by—workers, working populations, and the structure and meaning of working life. How and where does power operate in relation to making of workers, workforces, and working life? How are working life and working populations shaped by the material and imagined conditions of the ‘labour market’ (shortages, surpluses, mismatches, mobility, flexibility, crises, etc.)? How can we understand the making of workers and workforces in relation to geographies of uneven development? How should we think about population science, data, and workforce planning as forms of power? How does power ‘happen’ in the intimate aspects of work and workers’ lives?

 

Conference organizers have asked us to explore the intersection of what have been often divisive understandings of power in geography. As such, we aim to encourage a conversation that engages the question of labour/power in relation to structural, discursive, ideological, micropolitical, phenomenological, and other theoretical avenues. We welcome empirical and theoretical papers, examinations of historical and contemporary cases, and submissions that take forms other than the standard academic paper.

 

Submit abstracts to both Caitlin Henry ([log in to unmask]) and Katie Mazer ([log in to unmask]) by Monday, September 1^st.