IV ISA Forum of Sociology (February 23-28, 2021)

538

Advancing Environmental Labour Studies: Capitalism, Labour and Nature

Abstract Submissions Closed

RC44 Labor Movements (host committee)

Language: Spanish and English

Session Type: Oral

There is a growing urgency to better understand the relationship between the natural world and the social world. As delineated by Räthzel and Uzzell environmental labour studies is an emerging research field that seeks to do this through investigating the complex interrelationships between global capitalism, labour and nature. This session aims to advance environmental labour studies theoretically and empirically through a consideration of labour’s capacity and role in responding to ecological and environmental challenges. Labour is often perceived as caught in a dilemma between needing to protect the environment for current and future generations on the one hand while also supporting the unsustainable exploitation of natural resources in order to make a living in the short-term. This session takes a critical examination of labour’s position vis-a-vis capitalism and the natural world to consider contemporary socioecological challenges. These challenges may include issues related to climate change and de-carbonisation of the economy; environmental disasters brought on by private firms; food insecurity and agri-business; and proposed technological solutions to environmental problems. The session organisers welcome contributions from a range of critical theoretical perspectives including strong ecological modernisation, social ecology, socialist ecology, marxist-feminism, ecofeminism, critical realism and other socioecological approaches. These contributions can be theoretical and/or empirical studies from both the global north and global south that explore both unionised and non-unionised movements involving workers, peasants and indigenous people organisations.