Digital resources in the Social Sciences and Humanities OpenEdition Our platforms OpenEdition Books OpenEdition Journals Hypotheses Calenda Libraries OpenEdition Freemium Follow us

Call for Papers (CfP): Symposium “Knowing How to Labor. (Disruptive) Knowledge in Global Labor” [Closing date: 30 October 2025]

The symposium invites researchers in history and social sciences for its fourth academic gathering that is being organised in Buenos Aires, Argentina between April 14th-16th, 2026 in collaboration with the Universidad Nacional de San Martín (UNSAM), Buenos Aires and the Centro Maria Sibylla Merian de Estudios Latinoamericanos Avanzados en Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales (CALAS) to understand workprocesses and capital-labor relations embedded in informational regimes.

In this way, we highlight the dimensions of knowledge in the study of labor, focusing specifically on the knowledges and practices of workers and laboring populations, as opposed to the knowledge about labor generated by capital and the State. Broadly inspired by approaches that theorize these forms of knowledge as the basis of everyday acts of adaptation and resistance—including Michel de Certeau’s concept of tactics (2005) and James Scott’s notion of metis (1998)—the symposium will bring together researchers working on labor in a wide variety of (modern) regional and historical contexts— mostly, though not exclusively, in Latin America and the Caribbean and Asia—in order to inquire into the manifold ways of knowing labor employs to cope with and at times even counter the discipline it is subjected to.

To claim that there is a “knowing how to labor” implies recognizing that workers not only possess the knowledge necessary to carry out the tasks assigned to them by employers, managers, or planners of labor regimes, but also hold knowledge to navigate the conditions and adversities they face. This enables them—at times—to participate in acts of resistance and disruption. Disruptive knowledge, in turn, can foster rebellion, as suggested by approaches inspired by Subaltern Studies (Guha 1983). Yet, conversely, it may in the Scottian sense be the form of knowing that actually makes the conditions of laboring both bearable and possible, by disrupting the failures of management and planning that mark the disciplining of labor. Paradoxically, the latter disruption constitutes the nucleus for acts of subversion that challenge disciplinary regimes, but frequently serve to stabilize actually existing conditions of discipline and hierarchy.

This symposium will be the fourth academic gathering organized by a growing group of researchers seeking to expand the scope of global labor studies by bringing together research from and about the “Global North” and the “Global South.” Each of the previous events focused on different themes within the study of labor. The first, organized in Bonn, Germany (2022), addressed labor from the perspective of coercion and confinement, while the second (organized in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2023) focused on the study of the service–servility–servitude triad. The third event, held in Delhi, India in 2025, examined the role of intermediary actors and spaces in global labor regimes. This event will establish points of dialogue with the CALAS Knowledge Laboratory “Transformations in the World of Labor in a Global Perspective”, soon to be inaugurated.

Within this framework, we invite researchers in history and the social sciences to consider the following questions: What role did/does disruptive knowledge play in shaping the world of work? How was/is “knowing how to work” connected to workplace resistance strategies? How did/do situations of coercion, precariousness, and informality reshape workers’ practices?

We encourage contributions that examine the interconnected dimensions of work through the lenses of space, knowledge, informality, crisis, and mobility, particularly from the Global South. The following themes and subthemes are intended to guide the discussion. While these axes and subthemes are interwoven with the guiding questions above, they remain open to adjustment and expansion through collective debate.

  • Territory, habitat, and labor: space, geography, and worlds of work
  • Ecology and work: ecological crisis, materiality of nature and (regimes of) work
  • Precarity, marginality, and informality: relations, contrasts, and strategies
  • Internal and cross-border migrations and the labor market
  • Circuits, spaces, and nodes: fairs, markets, and mobilities
  • Learning and training how to Labor: Knowledge. Resistance and Tactics
  • Resistance, tactics, and workers’ antagonisms in historical perspective
  • Labor in Coercive Contexts: Enslavement, Penal and Indentured Labor

Event and Application:

Venue: Buenos Aires, Argentina

Date: 14 – 16 April 2026

Target audience: graduates, researchers, activists, artists, and community leaders involved with the theme, working from diverse disciplines, knowledges, and practices, contributing their theoretical-methodological and/or experiential perspectives and reflections in and from the territories.

Languages: Spanish and English are preferred, Portuguese is possible.

Application: Complete the online application form with the title and abstract of the proposal (300–400 words) and a short bio including professional background, publications, and/or relevant activities related to the theme.

Apply here: http://calas.lat/content/saberc%C3%B3mo-trabajarknowing-howwork

Deadline for proposals: 30 October 2025

Applicants will be informed about the outcome of their applications by 15 December 2025. Successful applicants are expected to send their papers latest by 1 March 2026 for precirculation among all participants to Lucas Christel (CALAS): calasconosur@unsam.edu.ar and Michaela Dimmers (MWF): dimmers@mwsindia.org

For further information, please contact Lucas Christel, CALAS: calasconosur@unsam.edu.ar


OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
mwfdelhi (September 18, 2025). Call for Papers (CfP): Symposium “Knowing How to Labor. (Disruptive) Knowledge in Global Labor” [Closing date: 30 October 2025]. Max Weber Forum for South Asian Studies (MWF Delhi). Retrieved February 16, 2026 from https://doi.org/10.58079/14pd6


You may also like...