This conference seeks to bring the two parallel literatures of ‘economic science fictions’ and ‘labour as commons’ into dialogue by inviting contributors to submit papers that investigate and analyse how can society move away from this dystopian economic science fiction via the practice of the labour commons. Papers should contribute to one of the three conference streams: 1) Alternative ways of organizing work, including organizations in the social or solidarity economy This stream includes research on workers-recovered companies, forms of democratic worker governance of enterprises, employee-ownership, cooperatives and other instances of self-management and self-activity.
2) Critiques of economic science fictions and conceptualisation of alternative theoretical frameworks for modes of work and property relationships, guided by the idea of commons.
3) Responses to emerging forms and control of work, including integration of new technologies and digitalisation This stream includes research on responses to how technology and digitalisation has reconfigured workplace organisation and the body social through intensified monitoring, surveillance and control . It includes also the impact of automation, cloud computing, big data and the Internet of Things on work systems and relations of production. Contributions are especially welcome if international, comparative or interdisciplinary in nature.
