05/12/2023
Las Torres de Lucca. Special Issue on Critical approaches to work in the neoliberal era: social suffering, politics of bodies and new democratic imaginaries
Work is an activity to which we devote a third of our adult lives and which constitutes the primary arena for socialisation in advanced capitalist societies. Today, it is impossible to discuss the world of work without addressing pathologies like exhaustion, fatigue, stress, and depression. These effects are exacerbated by a sense of a shrinking future in an increasingly unequal world, challenged by undemocratic political visions and the progressive consequences of environmental catastrophe. Despite the political significance of these issues, philosophy has lagged behind in exploring the social and subjective meanings of work compared to disciplines like the sociology of work, economics, sociology of organizations, labor law, and political theory.
However, in recent years, social philosophy and critical theory have begun rethinking work in connection with sustainable and egalitarian economic practices, such as degrowth models, ecological economics, and post-capitalist economies. This reflective horizon guides the work of the Spanish project PrecarityLab, an interdisciplinary research project initiated in 2020 at the Complutense University of Madrid, coordinated by Nuria Sánchez Madrid and Pablo López Álvarez. The project, in which the editors of this monographic issue are involved, encourages collective reflection on the contemporary experience of work within the tension between exploitation and emancipation. Its goal is to study the psycho-physical, epistemic, ecological, and moral impacts of labor activity, as well as the potential autonomy workers can achieve through concerted action or through reforming existing institutional and constitutional frameworks.
This special issue aims to invigorate this line of reflection by introducing new critical approaches to the labor experience in capitalist societies. The research community is invited to submit papers addressing this issue within the realm of social and political philosophy, engaging in dialogue with disciplines such as feminist theories, moral philosophy, philosophy of law, sociology, and political science. The dossier will prioritize the following reflective axes:
- Work, body and exploitation
- Work and processes of subjectivation
- Fordism, post-Fordism and new neoliberal management
- Work, poverty and citizenship
- Precarious labor and vulnerability
- Labor and care
- Work, social exclusion and epistemic injustice
- Social, sexual and racial division of labor
- Autonomy, identity and self-fulfillment at work
- Work and affects
- Work and emancipation
- Labor democracy
- Work and recognition
- Political centrality of work vs. the end of work
- Work and political ecology
- Domestic work
- Migrant labor
- Productivism vs. degrowth
- Feminist economies
- Popular economies
- New perspectives in labor law
- Trade unionism and new political struggles around work
Submissions
- Papers are accepted in English and Spanish, and exceptionally in French, Portuguese, Italian or German.
- Contributions should be between 7,000 and 10,000 words in length and include an abstract (200 words, maximum) and keywords both in Spanish and English.
- The manuscript must be fully prepared according to APA standardization (7th edition).
- Contributions will be accepted until 15 May 2024. Publication date: January 2025.
- More information on the submission guidelines (in English, French and Spanish) can be found on the journal's website.