Borders, Sorting, and Labour Markets In an Age of Turbulence

As economic globalization deepens and increasingly fractures, borders have undergone a profound transformation: no longer simple barriers, they have become active filters that hierarchize bodies, skills, and statuses, co-constructing the very labour markets they appear merely to regulate.
Yet this architecture of sorting is itself exposed to mounting turbulences: geopolitical upheavals, pandemic disruptions, climate dislocations, supply chain crises, and the rise of economic nationalism are redrawing the maps on which labour, capital, and mobility have long been organised.

This session invites sociologists to interrogate both the mechanisms of sorting and the shocks that unsettle, reconfigure, or brutally reinforce them.

We welcome contributions engaging with, but not limited to, the following themes:
1/ The sociology of borders as labour market devices.
2/ Turbulence as an analytical category
3/ Sorting mechanisms and the classification of workers
4/ Dual mobility regimes under stress
5/ Special economic zones and enclaves in volatile contexts
6/ The layering and unravelling of regulatory frameworks
7/ Workers' agency in uncertain times

Contributions grounded in fieldwork from Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and beyond are particularly encouraged, as are multi-sited approaches that trace how global turbulences are unevenly absorbed across different regional and national contexts.