The Individual in the Labour Market (ILM) Reading Group was founded in the year 2000 by Dr Brendan Burchell, Professor of Sociology and ex-President of Magdalene College
Our membership is mainly composed of graduate students in Sociology, but we also attract members from psychology, management, geography, politics and economics. As a group, our research interests and methods are broad, but are ultimately all united by an interest in employment and workers. The sessions have multiple aims, not least being keeping up to date with new developments in knowledge/methods/theories within the employment literature. Our membership guides our reading, with individuals often suggesting papers for group engagement that are of particular relevance to their own research. As such, other group members are encouraged to read more broadly than just within their own topic. ILM also has a strong social component, with there being a trip to the pub after each session and an annual reading retreat.
Format
The group typically meets 2-4 times over the course of each of the 3 undergraduate terms. The sessions are normally hosted on Thursday afternoons from 4:30-6pm and then followed by a trip to a local pub. Readings/ videos are circulated in the week prior to the session via the mailing list hosted on Moodle. In the sessions, we come and discuss our thoughts on the content we’ve engaged with. This could include the strengths and weaknesses of the paper, new ideas we’ve found interesting, or complaints about the colour schemes of graphs. We all share our feedback, then the floor is opened to a discussion of the broader themes raised.
Any Cambridge affiliated postgraduate student or staff member is welcome to attend the ILM sessions. If you are a visiting scholar or otherwise external to the University, please email us first.
Convenors and contact
If you’re interested in attending an ILM session, want to be added to the moodle page, or would like to suggest a reading, please contact:
Niamh Bridson Hubbard (mnb33@cam.ac,uk)
Charis Nogossek (cin22@cam.ac.uk)
Please click here to view the ILM archive website.
Upcoming meetings
No meetings are currently scheduled. Please check back here for future events.
Past meetings
Lent Term 2024:
- Thursday 18 Jan: Work & hope. Examining two recent articles that use the concept of ‘hope’ as a lens to explore the experiences of workers in creative industries
Readings: 'Keep hoping, keep going’: Towards a hopeful sociology of creative work. Ana Alacovska (2019) - Hope labour and the psychic life of cultural work. Ewan Mackenzie and Alan McKinlay (2021)
- Thursday 15 Feb: Women in the labour market. Celebrating Claudia Goldin being awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics
Readings: Career and Family: Women’s Century-Long Journey toward Equity. Claudia Goldin (2021): Chapters 1, 8 & 10
- Thursday 14 March: Contemporary professions and occupations
Readings: Data Scientists’ Identity Work: Omnivorous Symbolic Boundaries in Skills Acquisition. Netta Avnoon (2021) - Uberizing the Legal Profession? Lawyer Autonomy and Status in the Digital Legal Market. Yao Yao (2020)