Symposium: Bringing life’s work to market

Call for presenters

Bringing life’s work to market: A symposium on practices and spaces of marketised social reproduction

16-17 December 2019, University of Auckland, New Zealand (Aotearoa)

Confirmed speakers:

· Beverley Mullings (Queen’s University, Canada)

· Christian Berndt (University of Zurich, Switzerland)

· Dan Cohen (Concordia University, Canada)

· Emily Rosenman (Penn State University, USA)

· Gareth Bryant (University of Sydney, Australia)

· Jessa Loomis (Clark University, USA)

· Kalervo Gulson (University New South Wales, Australia)

· Lisa Adkins (University of Sydney, Australia)

· Shiloh Groot (University of Auckland, New Zealand)

· Sophia Maalsen (University of Sydney, Australia)

· Tom Baker (University of Auckland, New Zealand)

Convenors

Dan Cohen, Emily Rosenman, Jessa Loomis and Tom Baker

Outline

While economic production and social reproduction have always been deeply inter-dependant, the political and cultural ascendance of ‘the market’ over the last 40 years has further blurred the lines between economic and social life. As market logics have proliferated, various spaces of social reproduction—such as homes, schools and social services—have been reshaped by market-based and market-enabling subjectivities, technologies and policies. Most recently, the growing dominance of financial systems and logics in these spaces has led to claims that social reproduction has become fundamentally ‘financialised’ (Federici 2018).

Framed by such claims, this symposium seeks to bring together critical scholars to further develop a research agenda on contemporary relations between markets and those spaces commonly associated with practices of social reproduction. It comes at a time, not only of empirically intensifying relations between ‘life’s work’ (Mitchell et al. 2004) and forms of marketisation, but of resurgent scholarly interest in critical theories of social reproduction and marketisation. We welcome established and emerging scholars from Geography, Political Economy, Sociology, Education, Science & Technology Studies, and cognate disciplines to interrogate the features, implications and implied futures of marketised social reproduction.

Anticipated cost, format and output

There is no registration fee, however presenters are expected to cover the cost of evening meals. Lunch and tea/coffee will be provided to presenters on both days. Child care will be subsidised, with arrangements to be finalised in consultation with applicable presenters. The convenors anticipate the symposium will comprise a mixture of conference-style (15 mins) papers by each presenter as well as interactive sessions, keynotes and communal meals/refreshment breaks, with the intention of building professional connections and developing a diverse but shared intellectual project. The symposium is being organised with the intention of producing a special issue or edited book collection, to be discussed in more detail during the symposium.

Instructions for potential presenters

If you are interested in presenting a paper at the symposium, please submit a paper title, author list and abstract of approx. 200 words to t.baker@auckland.ac.nz by 31 July 2019. We aim to reply to potential presenters within two weeks of this date. Please direct any questions or informal expressions of interest to Tom Baker at the email above.

Travel grants

Funding is available to support two early-career scholars (inclusive of PhD students, post-docs and junior faculty). One travel grant will be awarded to a scholar from Australia or New Zealand and will cover flights and accommodation up to the value of $1000; the other travel grant will be awarded to a scholar from outside Australia/New Zealand and will cover flights and accommodation up to the value of $2000. Travel grants will be allocated according to the submitted paper’s alignment to the symposium’s theme and preference will be given to Indigenous scholars, scholars from the global South, and those without institutional resources that would otherwise enable their involvement. When submitting a paper (details above), we ask that people wishing to be considered for a travel grant indicate whether such criteria are applicable to them. We aim to inform travel grant applicants within two weeks of the abstract submission date.

Author: Gareth Bryant

Gareth Bryant is a political economist at the University of Sydney. He works as a senior lecturer in the Department of Political Economy and as economist-in-residence with the Sydney Policy Lab.