We are pleased invite you to submit an abstract for our upcoming panel at the 22nd Nordic Migration Research Conference at the University of Bergen, Norway on 14 -16 August 2024:
5. Sociolegal precaritisation of Migrant Workers and their labour
The panel will discuss existing discrepancies and inequalities of welfare and citizenship shaped by im/mobilities of migrant workers, and how that in turn shapes global im/mobilities. Understanding precarity as structural, this panel calls for a conversation that connects different negotiation modes against precarious life and work circumstances endured by migrant workers, across different levels such as individual workers, collectives, organisations, and states. It aims to shed light on tangible strategies against precarious life conditions unique to migrant workers. At the same time, this panel is interested in finding out how certain tactics can also reproduce new divisions and hierarchies, leading to the creation of new inequalities. We focus on the nexus of precarious work and legal/illegal status surrounding workers, i.e. citizenship understood as a set of rights and obligations, embodied hierarchies of nationality, race and gender, and class. In doing so, it explores precarious work and the relevant contextual factors (Legal, social economic or political) that foster this precarity. Its aim is to open up interdisciplinary discussion enabling a better understanding of precarious migrant workers’ negotiation - within, outside and in between legal frameworks - with the migration system, national state, and society. We invite submissions on themes such as, but not exclusively:
* Precarious work as downward mobility of professional and legal status, e.g. residence status
* How precarity is fostered through legal apparatus, e.g. social welfare, labour and migration laws
* Regulation of platform work and digitalisation of societal sphere and work
* Social construction of ‘illegal’ work and precarity
* Workers’ negotiation of precarious work conditions; allies and obstacles
Keywords: welfare, statuses, hierarchies, inequalities, negotiations
The deadline of submitting your abstract (maximum 300 words) is on 29 February 2024.