Call for participants

3rd Labour Transfer Summer School: establishing links between research and labour activism

Buggerru, Sardinia, Italy, 19 to 24 June 2024

Join us for the Third Labour Transfer Summer School, this year with a new enlarged and exiting programme and more vacancies for students and activists.  

The Labour Transfer Summer School (LabourTransfer) is an independent, not for profit, international initiative of global labour scholars interested in collaborations, synergies and knowledge exchange between academia and social organizations, aiming at producing emancipatory knowledge on labour and social issues.

LabourTransfer gives students and participants a chance to exchange their research interests with academics, labour activists and trade unionists from all over the world.

The learning objectives of LabourTransfer are twofold:
1) to provide a new and sui generis learning environment for labour activists and organisers and for postdoctoral, doctoral and master students specialising in labour studies from different disciplines.
2) to create a global network of students, scholars, institutions, unions, and activists committed to the advancing of knowledge about society and economy from a labour perspective.

The following are the themes we are aiming to discuss this year, in both plenary and participants led workshop sessions: rural labour, reconversion/ecology/industrial transition, recovered enterprises/workers' self-management, labour at sea, global/transnational trade unions action, logistics/amazon, education/workers' activism, labour regimes analysis, imperialism and overexploitation in Africa and the Global South, social reproduction/feminism, migration and labour, labour law and activism, trade unions against authoritarianism.

Confirmed speakers for this year’s edition include: Mark Anner, Penn State University; Jamie Woodcock, Essex University; Alessandra Mezzadri, SOAS; Beverly Skeggs, Goldsmith College; Dario Azzellini, Zacatecas University; Liam Campling, Queen Mary University, Eleanor Kirk, Glasgow University, Maurizio Atzeni, Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Rutvica Andrijasevich, Bristol University; Patrick Neveling, Bournemouth University, Stefano Bellucci, International Institute of Social History, Francesca Congiu and Piera Loi University of Cagliari; Henrique Tahan Novaes, Unesp Marilia; Julia Soul, Ceil Conicet, Giovanni Orlandini, University of Siena; Chang Dae-oup, Sogang University.

The idea of the summer school is that of conjugating research and relax. Buggerru, where the school is located, is a small lovely place by the sea in Sardinia. However, Buggerru is also symbolically important for labour history. It was a mining city where workers organised a boycott to demand better working conditions. In response, the army was sent in and three workers were killed while many others injured. That Sunday 4 September 1904 is still remembered today because The Buggerru Massacre sparked the first general strike of Italian history.

School’s attendance is FREE! Students pay only to cover hotel accommodation and meals (for the duration of the school) and transfer from Cagliari to Buggerru. This year’s total price is 490 Euros.

We are aiming this year to select about fifty activists and students. Selection will be on the basis of a letter of motivation and a CV. Please also include, a short bio and a sentence or two on your current research work and/or political activism for labour, as separate document in your application. We would publish these short-infos in the programme of speakers and participants accepted for the summer school and they will also help us structure some of the afternoons sessions.

A limited number of bursaries will be available for participants without institutional support, unemployed or in precarious working conditions. We particularly welcome applications from scholars and activists committed to research/activism transfer of knowledge, from or with research on the Global South and with grassroots organising experience.

Applications will be open until the 15th of January 2024. Selected participants will be notified of their acceptance to the school by the 22nd of January 2024.

For further information and to apply please send email to: labourtransferschool@gmail.com