Max-Planck-Institut für ethnologische Forschung
Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology
CONFERENCE
Regular and Precarious Labour in
Modern Industrial Settings
6 – 9 May 2015
Organisers: Research Group ‘Industry and Inequality in Eurasia’
PROGRAMME
Wednesday, 6th May 2015
18.00
Keynote Lecture: Precarious Politics or the Politics of Precarity
Michael Burawoy
University of California, Berkeley
19.15
Reception
Thursday, 7th May 2015
8.30 – 9.15
Registration
9.15 – 9.30
Introduction to the Workshop by Chris Hann and Jonathan Parry
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Venue: MAIN SEMINAR ROOM of the MPI for Social Anthropology, Advokatenweg 36
Phone: +49 (0)3 45 29 27 - 0
1
Max-Planck-Institut für ethnologische Forschung
Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology
9.30 – 11.00
Panel I
Chair: Chris Hann
Ching Kwan Lee
University of California, Los Angeles
Varieties of Capital, Fractures of Labor: A comparative ethnography of
precarization on the Zambian Copperbelt
Discussant: Sharryn Kasmir
Dimitra Kofti
Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle
Scales of Precarity: Regular and casual industrial labour, precarious
households and declining solidarities in Bulgaria
Discussant: Gavin Smith
11.00 – 11.30 Coffee break
11.30 – 13.00 Panel II
Chair: Jonathan Parry
Eeva Kesküla
Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle
The End of Reproduction of the Old Working Class in Kazakhstan?
Discussant: Sarah Ashwin
Sian Lazar
University of Cambridge
Union Responses to Stability and Precarity in State Employment. Why do pay
grades matter?
Discussant: Sharryn Kasmir
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Venue: MAIN SEMINAR ROOM of the MPI for Social Anthropology, Advokatenweg 36
Phone: +49 (0)3 45 29 27 - 0
2
Max-Planck-Institut für ethnologische Forschung
Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology
13.00 – 14.00 Lunch break
14.00 – 15.30 Panel III
Chair: Luisa Steur
Daromir Rudnyckyj
University of Victoria
Regimes of Precarity: “Buruh”, “Karyawan”, and the politics of labor identity
in Indonesia
Discussant: Mao Mollona
Dina Makram-Ebeid
Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle
God-given Work and State-given Work: Religious cosmology and the
interpretation of precarity on the margins of an Egyptian steel town
Discussant: Frances Pine
15.30 – 16.00 Coffee break
16.00 – 17.30 Panel IV
Chair: Jens Lerche
Christian Strümpell
Heidelberg University
The Twofold Precarisation of Labour in an Eastern Indian Steel Town
Discussant: Jan Breman
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Venue: MAIN SEMINAR ROOM of the MPI for Social Anthropology, Advokatenweg 36
Phone: +49 (0)3 45 29 27 - 0
3
Max-Planck-Institut für ethnologische Forschung
Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology
I-Chieh Fang
Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle
Caste-like System, „Expendability‟ and Peasant Workers in Contemporary
China
Discussant: James Carrier
17.30 – 18.00 Concluding Comments of External Discussants
Jens Lerche, Gavin Smith, Don Kalb
Dinner at restaurant „Alchimistenklause„
19.00
Friday, 8th May 2015
9.30 – 11.00
Panel V
Chair: Lale Yalçın-Heckmann
Elisabeth Schober
University of Oslo
The (Un-)Making of Labour: Capitalist accelerations and shattered bodies at a
South Korean shipyard in the Philippines
Discussant: James Carrier
Tommaso Trevisani
Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle
Work, Precarity and Resistance: Company and contract labour in
Kazakhstan‟s former Soviet steel town
Discussant: Mao Mollona
11.00 – 11.30 Coffee break
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Venue: MAIN SEMINAR ROOM of the MPI for Social Anthropology, Advokatenweg 36
Phone: +49 (0)3 45 29 27 - 0
4
Max-Planck-Institut für ethnologische Forschung
Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology
11.30 – 13.00 Panel VI
Chair: Frances Pine
Michael Peter Hoffmann
University of Cologne
Asking for and Getting Isthai Kam: Maoist unionists and the regularization of
contract labour in industries in Western Nepal
Discussant: Jan Breman
Geert De Neve and Grace Carswell
University of Sussex
Precarious Labour Market Participation in the Tiruppur Garment Cluster:
Skill acquisition, gender, age and caste
Discussant: Jens Lerche
13.00 – 14.00 Lunch break
14.00 – 15.30 Panel VII
Chair: Kirsten Endres
Luisa Piart
University of Bern
Dis/entangling Labor Relations and Equivocal Entrepreneurship in Istanbul‟s
Garment Industry
Discussant: Gavin Smith
Rebecca Prentice
University of Sussex
Microenterprise, Industrial Labour, and the Romance of Precarity in Trinidad
Discussant: Frances Pine
15.30 – 16.00 Coffee break
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Venue: MAIN SEMINAR ROOM of the MPI for Social Anthropology, Advokatenweg 36
Phone: +49 (0)3 45 29 27 - 0
5
Max-Planck-Institut für ethnologische Forschung
Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology
16.00 – 16.30 Concluding Comments of External Discussants
James Carrier, Sarah Ashwin, Mao Mollona
Dinner at restaurant „Budapest„
18.30
Saturday, 9th May 2015
9.30 – 11.00
Panel VIII
Chair: Luisa Steur
Andrew Sanchez
University of Kent, Canterbury
Relative Precarity: Decline, possibility and the politics of work
Discussant: Jens Lerche
Jeremy Morris and Sarah Hinz
University of Birmingham and Friedrich Schiller University Jena
Free Automotive Unions, Industrial Work and Precariousness in Provincial
Russia
Discussant: Sarah Ashwin
11.00 – 11.30 Coffee break
11.30 – 13.00 General Discussion
Chair: Gavin Smith
Don Kalb: Conference Summary; Open discussion
13.00 – 14.00 Lunch break
14.00 – 15.00 Final Impressions
Michael Burawoy
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Venue: MAIN SEMINAR ROOM of the MPI for Social Anthropology, Advokatenweg 36
Phone: +49 (0)3 45 29 27 - 0
6