All english articles

Interview with Dario Azzellini, 26 min.

Commons and Social Transformation

Theresa Alt asks Dario Azzellini about the concept of commons, economic activity that is neither capitalist nor governmental. The commons existed before capitalism, and capitalism requires enclosure of the commons. Now many see commoning as a way to decommodify some resources. Labor power too could be decommodified. But capital tries to take over more and more.

Berlin, May 2024

Notes from an event with Dario Azzellini and the Initiative for Democratic Labour Time Accounting

We document these notes from a recent discussion event. We appreciate that the international discussion about transition is widening and becoming more concrete. When it comes to the recuperated factories in Argentina it would be good to sharpen the political criteria. Which factories are still engaged in a wider political movement for a general social transformation and why?

Program

3rd Labour Transfer School 2024 - Buggerru, Sardinia, Italy

Looking forward to meer everyone invited and singed up for the Labour Transfer School 2024!

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Workers' struggles and capitalist strategies: Perspectives from Africa and South America in an age of 'sustainability'

Workshop organised by Centre on Labour, Sustainability and Global Production
17 and 18 June 2024 at Queen Mary University of London

Programme

June 17th
10.30 to 13.00: Structures of capital in agriculture, logistics and manufacturing in Africa and South America
15.00 to 17.30: Workers’ creativity, education and the co-production of knowledge of capital

June 18th
10.00 to 13.00: Contours of strategy and struggle from below
14:00: Walking tour by Edward Legon and Jack Sargeant

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Who are the Experts? Co-Research with workers and communities - Masterclass at the CLaSP London

Please join us for a Masterclass on Co-researching methods with workers and communities with Dario Azzellini, Autonomous University of Zacatecas, Mexico. The masterclass will be held on the 13th of June between 3.00 to 5.00 pm in Queens QB-213, in Mile End Campus, Queen Mary University of London.

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Sustainable Work and Just Transition - Masterclass at the CLaSP London

Please join us for a Masterclass on Sustainable Work and Just Transition with Dario Azzellini, Autonomous University of Zacatecas, Mexico. The masterclass will be held on the 11th of June between 3 and 5pm in the Graduate Center building, room GC201, in Mile End Campus.

BERLINER GAZETTE CONFERENCE · WORKSHOP PROJECTS · 1999-2023

Working-Class Environmentalism

BERLINER GAZETTE CONFERENCE · WORKSHOP PROJECTS · 1999-2023

Working-Class Environmentalism

The Toolkit for Sustainable Work

When asked to imagine what sustainable work would look like, people envision different possibilities, as shown by this sample of participants in the Allied Grounds conference.

Video talk based on the article: Optimizing or Abolishing Capitalism? Sustainable Work and Just Transition Rather than Labor Society and Climate Catastrophe

Sustainable Work

Workers of all stripes and their communities potentially have an existential interest in sustainable, non-polluting production. And they are also the ones who will bear the brunt of a social-ecological transformation. Therefore, if workers do not take a central role in defining and practicing the transformation, it will not happen, as the social scientist Dario Azzellini argues in his “Allied Grounds” video talk.

Policies and labour movement actors in France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Norway, Spain, Poland, Colombia, Mexico and the Philippines

Sustainable Work and Just Transition

Sustainable Work and Just Transition

Policies and labour movement actors in France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Norway, Spain, Poland, Colombia, Mexico and the Philippines

Dario Azzellini · Lorenzo Feltrin · Brett Neilson · Anna Saave

Politics of Translation: Preparing the Ground for New Alliances

Politics of Translation: Preparing the Ground for New Alliances - 11.10.2023

Dario Azzellini · Lorenzo Feltrin · Brett Neilson · Anna Saave

Handbook of Research on the Global Political Economy of Work

Handbook of Research on the Global Political Economy of Work

This ground-breaking Handbook broadens empirical and theoretical understandings of work, work relations, and workers. It advances a global, intersectional labour studies agenda, laying the foundations for the politically emancipatory project of decolonising the political economy of work.

Sustainable Work and Just Transition Rather than Labor Society and Climate Catastrophe

Optimizing or Abolishing Capitalism?

Optimizing or Abolishing Capitalism? Sustainable Work and Just Transition Rather than Labor Society and Climate Catastrophe

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ALLIED GROUNDS · BG 2023 Project

ALLIED GROUNDS · BG 2023 Project · Text Series, Conference, and More

With annual projects such as “Water Knowledge” (2009), “More World” (2019), and “After Extractivism” (2022), the Berliner Gazette began to explore various questions of political ecology, linking issues of environmental pollution, resource commodification, and climate collapse to the toxically intertwined and mutually fueling economic and ecological crises caused by imperialism and capitalism.

Podcast: All Things Co-op

People Power - Imagining a World without Bosses

In this episode of All Things Co-op, Kevin Gustafson and Cinar Akcin speak with sociologist, political scientist, author and documentary filmmaker Dario Azzellini. They discuss recuperated workplaces—workplaces that have been abandoned by private capitalist owners and taken over by workers and reorganized to be democratically controlled—and why the process of engaging in struggle with fellow workers builds an enduring ecosystem of trust.

Commune socialism: Self-management, popular power and autonomy in Venezuela

Commune socialism: Self-management, popular power and autonomy in Venezuela

Azzellini, Dario. “Commune socialism: self-management, popular power and autonomy in Venezuela.” Veltmeyer, H., & Ezquerro-Cañete, A. (Eds.). (2023). From Extractivism to Sustainability: Scenarios and Lessons from Latin America (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003301981

Rosa Luxemburg Foundation: Conference "Contesting Authoritarianism: Perspectives from the South"

Video: Panel „Alternative Democracies / Alternatives to Democracy“

Rosa Luxemburgo Stiftung. International Research Group on Authoritarianism and Counter-strategies. Labour policies and worker’s struggles in authoritarian contexts | CAPS22

Panel „Alternative Democracies / Alternatives to Democracy“: the panel was part of the Conference „Contesting Authoritarianism: Perspectives from the South“ that happened in Berlin from 16 - 21 May 2022, with: 

Dario Azzellini

Chavismo: Revolutionary Bolivarianism in Venezuela

Chavismo: Revolutionary Bolivarianism in Venezuela

Azzellini, Dario. 2022. “Chavismo: revolutionary Bolivarianism in Venezuela.” van der Linden, Marcel (Ed.). The Cambridge History of Socialism. A Global History in Three Volumes. Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 517-541.

Why platform capitalism is not the future of work

This article examines the assumptions behind the sociology of work and industrial relations literature on online labour-based platforms. This literature has critically examined working conditions and worker resistance in platform work, but it has done so without criticising what we call the ‘metanarrative of the platform economy’.

Podcast, 16:48 min

Why the music industry won’t be “Uberized” with Charles Umney and Dario Azzellini

Podcast: Why the music industry won’t be “Uberized” with Charles Umney and Dario Azzellini. Centre for Employment Relations, Innovation and Change, University of Leeds, June 2022, 16:48 min

Dr Charles Umney and Dr Dario Azzellini discuss the limits to the platform economy, and why many occupations are unlikely to be ‘Uberized’, using the live music industry as an example.

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Global and Transnational Sociology Summer School

Block II June 27 - July 07, 2022 (10 - 14 Uhr, 10 am - 2 pm)

Contemporary Global Social Movements

Dario Azzellini, Ph.D.

 

Course Description

The COVID-19 Pandemic and Class Struggle

Crises under capitalism tend to increase existing inequalities. This is also a consequence of the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Global labor income decreased by an estimated 10.7 % (or US$3.5 trillion) in the first nine months of 2020 compared to the previous year. Meanwhile, the total combined wealth of the more than 2,200 official billionaires worldwide grew from $9.5 trillion on December 31, 2019 to an estimated US$11.4 trillion a year later.

Global Dialogue, GD 12.1 - April 2022

Editorial

Universities and science are undergoing far-reaching changes as a result of their marketization or quasi-marketization under neoliberal governance. In this issue of Global Dialogue we take up this topic in our section ‘Talking Sociology.’ Jill Blackmore has been studying the profound restructuring experienced by Australian universities over the last decades. In this interview she elaborates on these restructurings, the forces that drove them, and the effects they have on academic knowledge production and epistemic justice.

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Book launch event: “If Not Us, Who?: Workers worldwide against authoritarianism, fascism and dictatorship”

Launch event – Save the date: 

The aim of the launch event is to present the volume and dive deeper into some of the contributions by the authors, but also to take stock of global developments in the aftermath of the book’s release. Speakers will present their chapters, discuss the further evolution of their work, and participate in a Q&A session with the audience.

Venezuela Communes

Dario Azzellini tells Theresa Alt about communes in Venezuela.

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I. International Congress Communal Democracy: "Community, popular power and self-government: practices to transform democracy"

I. International Congress Communal Democracy: "Community, popular power and self-government: practices to transform democracy"

Organized by: Peace with Dignity – Bakea Duintasunarekin / Parte Hartuz of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU)

In autumn 2021 (October 13-16), the First International Congress on Communal Democracy will be held in the town of Hernani (Basque Country). The aim of the Congress is to address concrete collective ideas and practices that question and seek to transform current models of democracy.

Dario Azzellini

Workers’ Control and Self-Management

Workers’ Control and Self-Management

43. Workers’ Control and Self-Management 

Dario Azzellini

Class Struggle from Above and from Below during the COVID-19 pandemic

Crises under capitalism, as historical analysis proves, tend to entail a transfer of wealth from the poor to the wealthy. Inequalities between poor and wealthy, between people of color and white people, between North and South and between genders are increasing. Most scholars will agree that this is also happening on a global level as a consequence of the handling of the covid-19 pandemic. However, there is a lot of disagreement regarding the evaluation of workers’ resistance.