Scholars studying various aspects of gender, labour, employment or work are invited to the interdisciplinary group on 'Gender and Working Lives'.
Gender has long been recognised as an important analytic category in scholarship on work in various disciplines, including economics, geography, history, sociology and social anthropology. In particular, influential debates on productive/reproductive labour, the devaluation of feminised labour and occupational segregation have emerged through research on gender and work. Feminist literature has also drawn on diverse theoretical approaches to bring together the cultural and material dimensions of gendered work, as well as interrogate the intersections of gender with other social categories of difference such as class and ethnicity/race. While renewed academic interest in work, particularly growing precariousness and inequalities, is encouraging, it often glosses over such debates by focussing on waged labour or particular occupations/sectors, which can obscure movement in and out of work and diverse livelihood strategies across formal-informal economies, as well as wider questions of social reproduction.
In this research group, we therefore distinctly consider various aspects of 'working lives' rather than 'work' in relation to gender. We are particularly interested in rich qualitative research, whether historical or contemporary, that centres on the every-day experiences of work and social reproduction, and that spans workers' involvement over their lifetimes in various kinds of work (paid and unpaid). The group meets for reading and discussion sessions every two weeks during term time as well as organises events from time to time. If you're interested in joining, please write to genderandworkinglives@gmail.com.