Work, needs, and necessity

Join this workshop at QMUL exploring the connection between work and human needs from a range of interdisciplinary perspectives.

Bringing together scholars developing the political theory of work with empirical researchers from geography, political economy, psychology, and related fields who investigate the changing organisation and experience of work, this workshop aims to develop a robust interdisciplinary dialogue over how work meets (or fails to meet) human needs, as well as over how alternative models of work and/or needs-provision might reshape those possibilities.

The event will be hosted in the Graduate Centre (no. 18 on this map), room GC101, and is free to attend.

Questions? Email g.boss@qmul.ac.uk.

Schedule

10:00–10:30

Welcome and registration

10:30–12:00

Panel 1

• Ben Turner (QMUL): Post-work, needs and ‘expensive tastes’
• Mareile Pfannebecker (Independent): Disemployment, work and the erosion of citizenship
• David Spencer (Leeds): Work, needs and necessity: a view from economics

12:00–12:45

Lunch (provided).

12:45–14:15

Panel 2

• Helena Lopes (Lisbon): The labour that meets basic needs: Political challenges
• George Boss (QMUL): A political ontology of the need to work
• Ruth Yeoman (Oxford): Life works and civilisational instability

14:15–14:30

Break

14:30–16:00

Panel 3

• Will Monteith (QMUL) and Liz Fouksman (KCL): ‘Nothing is for free’: Moral perspectives on work and redistribution among Eastern European migrant workers in post-furlough London
• Medbh Hughes (Oxford): A world beyond work? Utopian fragments in the early Frankfurt School
• Orlando Lazar (RHUL): Social contribution in a post-work world

16:00–16:15

Break

16:15–17:00

Closing roundtable