Please find an interesting call for abstracts below:

Welcome to the third International Interdisciplinary Conference on Research on Work held 16-18 August 2017, in Turku Finland. The 2017 conference will look forward with the theme ‘Work and Labour in the Digital Future’.

The first conference on research on work, WORK2013, followed by the second conference, WORK2015 in Turku, Finland brought over 400 participants from all over the world with excellent keynote and paper sessions. WORK2017 will stand out with the interdisciplinary theme of digital future.

We cordially invite you to submit an individual abstract to existing streams (listed below). Submission for abstracts opens on the 15th of November at the webpage: http://www.WORK2017.fi.

The theme for the Conference, Work and Labour in the Digital Future addresses the upheavals of current and future work, as well as the changing nature of work across occupations, industries and countries. Digitalization concerns not only the contents of work, the modes and ways of doing work, but also the future of labour and what kind of society will we create through digitalization.

The WORK2017 Conference welcomes abstracts exploring, describing and analyzing the digital world and questions of work and labour. The gig economy and platform economy put into question the ways work is currently organized. Jobs created through technological progress have been to large extent restricted to skilled workers and the number of new jobs created through digitalization and new technologies has been relatively small.  We can justifiably ask if the digital revolution can provide real and rising incomes with reasonable levels of equality, or will it create new and unforeseen divisions in societies.

How to think about work and labour in the digital future? The theme for WORK2017 calls for bold analyses of the contours and boundaries of work and working in ways which demand new understanding, both theoretically and empirically. These changes include, but are by no means limited to:

• Shifting meanings of work, employment, underemployment and unemployment
• New forms of work; self-employment, entrepreneurship; precarious employment
• Work in the gig economy and platform economy
• Technological development and changing work
• Unemployment in the platform economy
• Skills, capabilities and future of work
• Shifts in work and working life patterns
• Education and work
• Job crafting
• Technology and future of jobs
• Labour, work and money
• Global economy and work
• Work and time and working time; temporality of work
• Health and wellbeing at work
• Theorising work in the platform economy
• Future of work and welfare society;
• Legal aspects of work, employment and unemployment

The questions outlined above concern the changing role and place of work and labour. The questions include also those relating to the very definition of work as well as its meanings and contents in the digital era.

It is against this background that this conference seeks to explore Work and Labour in the Digital Future. It does so from a variety of perspectives and solid disciplinary approaches, including interdisciplinary approaches associated with critical labour studies, new economic sociology, feminist theory, post-colonial studies, social and cultural theory, sociology, cultural studies, anthropology, philosophy, critical health studies and gender studies.

The Conference will host over 20 existing streams on work and will introduce new streams proposed by participants. You are invited to submit the abstract to any of the established streams, or alternatively propose a new stream suitable for the conference theme by emailing to WORK2017@utu.fi. The established themes at WORK2017 are:

• Changing Employment Relations
• Changing Modes Of Digitalisation And Its Impact On Work
• Digital Work In The Gig Economy And In The Platform Economy
• Education, Work, Employment
• Gendering Work
• Health And Wellbeing At Work
• History Of Working Life
• Labour Markets And Labour Policies
• Leadership, Work And Innovation
• Legal Aspects Of Work And Employment
• New Meanings Of Work
• Migration, Work And Entrepreneurship
• Organising Work, Working Organisations
• Overwork And Its Effects
• Towards Interdisciplinary Theorising Of Work In The Platform Economy
• Precarious Employment And Digital World
• Public Sector Work And Welfare Society
• Sources Of Meaning In Work
• Sustainability And Work
• Work And Family
• Work Practises And Quality Of Work
• Open Streams

Abstract submission will open on the 15th of November 2016 at http://www.work2017.fi.

Proposals for new streams (max. 400 words) should be submitted to WORK2017@utu.fi by the 7th of November.

You will find a more detailed description of the established streams at the conference website by the 1st of November. New streams, after acceptance, will also be published on the website by the 11th of November.