Research Network: History of Body Politics in the Global South (Web); Elife Biçer-Deveci (Bern und Erlangen/Nürnberg), Sivan Balslev (Jerusalem), Esther Möller (Mainz), Cyrus Schayegh and Davide Rodogno (Geneva)

Time: 19.-22.06.2024
Venue: Geneva Graduate Institute
Proposals by: 20.03.2023

The conference will discuss the role of international organizations in shaping body politics in countries of the Global South during the 20th century. International organizations often took upon themselves responsibilities regarding the bodies of populations across the globe. Defending bodies from sickness, substance abuse, hunger, trafficking, and harmful labor was an official goal of organizations such as the League of Nations, the World Health Organization, the International Labor Organization, International Atomic Energy Association etc. Other international organizations such as missions, global businesses, humanitarian and aid organizations have equally dealt with body politics in their respective frameworks. The conference invites historians to discuss the agendas of international organizations from a critical perspective, questioning their neutral stances in the understanding and definition of the physical needs of societies in the Global South. (With Global South, the organizers refer to regions outside of Europe and North-America, which are newly industrialized, in the process of industrialization and are frequently current or former subjects of colonialism.)
Historians have often referred to racial and gendered biases in the agendas of international organizations towards non-European societies. Yet, the impact of their understanding of the bodies of the people they encountered is not yet sufficiently explored. The focus on bodies and body politics is usually considered in gender and sexuality studied, but less so in studies of international organizations. Examining the actions of international organizations can offer new insights on how colonial bodies were constructed by such organizations, how local actors reacted to such interferences, to what extent these constructions had an impact on social and political structures, and in which ways these constructions are perpetuated in the present. Read more … (Web)

Source: H-Net Notifications

Gender Studies Committee of the Swiss Sociological Association and the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (Web)

Time: 07.-08.09.2023
Venue: Lucerne – Zentralstrasse 9, Luzern
Proposals by: 08.01.2023

• Keynotes: Lena Hipp (Berlin Social Science Center) and Karin Schwiter (Univ. of Zurich)

New work – new problems? Since the 20th century, paid employment has played a central role in guaranteeing social integration and livelihoods. In the tradition of Frithjof Bergmann, “new work” indicates a shift where paid work should serve the workers (and not the opposite) and provide them with meaning and satisfaction. Digitalization, globalization and the resulting flexibilization shape the way we work. Autonomy at work, self-organization and flexible working patterns are on the upswing as “new work”. We observe, however, an ambiguous impact on the workers. Precarity, exhaustion and exploitation, thus the opposite of the ideal “new work”, is what many employees currently experience. Furthermore, new work is ambivalently intertwined with the question of gender equity: Changing working conditions and environments nourish hope for greater gender justice in the context of more egalitarian work cultures. Naturalizing arguments that women – as better team players – will profit from these changes fall short, since research has shown that the flexibilization of working conditions has reinforced and normalized the high commitment employees should show towards their employer, including working late and full-time. This reproduces the prototype of the ideal male worker.
In the aftermath of the pandemic: The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted various contradictions: whereas opportunities for gender equality have emerged, like the implementation of innovative family-friendly measures in some economic sectors or companies, not all employees take advantage from this situation, leaving to paradoxical effects and unintended consequences of workplace innovations. Gender, in interaction with function, position, education or migration status plays a significant role. Further, the care gap between men and women has widened during the pandemic. Especially single parents and people caring for children and adults in need were affected most negatively by lockdown and quarantines. It became clear, once again, that care work is essential, and that economic growth is inevitably based on unpaid and poorly paid care work largely performed by women. Whether this … read more and source (Web).