Worlds of Related Coercions in Work

The COST Action “Worlds of Related Coercions in Work” (WORCK) calls for a radical change of perspective in labour history. It links the stories of work and production with those of violence, expropriation, and marginalisation. By studying the persistence and transformations of coercion and bondage across gender orders, geographic regions and historical eras, WORCK shifts the focus of labour history: from the male-breadwinner model and the free wage labourer or the capitalist mode of production to the understanding of the mechanisms of coercion in all work relations throughout history; from the analytical framework of the modern West to radical historicisation that helps reconceptualising labour history as a specific approach to social history and to link the study of the past with current debates on social inequalities and the flexibilisation and precarisation of work worldwide.

Learn more about WORCK here.

The funding period of WORCK has ended in March 2024.

Publication Platform

The WORCK publication platform documents the ongoing working and discussion process as well as collaborative research results and publications of this network.

Publication Platform

Blog

In our Blog, we address current debates on labour and coercion.

Recent News

Call for Abstracts: “Punish and Rehabilitate through Work: Institutions, Discourses, and Agency in Central, Eastern, and Western Europe at the End of the 19th and in the First Half of the 20th Century” (Prague)

March 11th, 2024|Calls and Open Positions, News, Uncategorized|

13-15 November 2024 Institute of History, Czech Academy of Sciences Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe, GWZO German Historical Institute Warsaw Faculty of Humanities, Charles University Deadline for Applications: 4 [...]

Recent Blog Posts

Solidarity with Iranian Women

By the Società Italiana delle Storiche (Italian Society of Women Historians)  The Società Italiana delle Storiche (Italian Society of Women Historians) is following the recent events in Iran with admiration and concern in [...]