The early 2020s brought a cascade of disruptions – COVID-19, war-amplified inflation and migration blockages – that reshaped global labour in uneven and deeply unequal ways. This edited collection offers a novel biographical and relational approach that centres workers’ lived experiences, histories and networks.
Mihai Varga is a sociologist and Senior Researcher at the Institute for East-European Studies, Freie Universität Berlin. Mateusz Karolak is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Sociology, University of Wrocław. Adam Mrozowicki is Head of the Department of the Sociology of Work and Economic Sociology at the Institute of Sociology, University of Wroclaw.
Introduction: Workers and the Polycrisis - Mihai Varga, Adam Mrozowicki, and Mateusz Karolak1. Worker Biographies and Recurrent Crises in the EU Periphery - Mihai Varga and Diana Percă2. Resilient Workers and Biographical Resources in Berlin - Christian Fröhlich3. Debts, Work, and Autonomy of Women Returnees to Colombia - Sofia Margarita Vinasco-Molina and Yenny Carolina Ramírez Suárez4. Waiting and Hope among Precarious Migrant Workers in Istanbul - Soner Barthoma and Susan Beth Rottmann5. Care between Nationhood and Capitalism: Precarious Female Teachers in Croatia’s Minoritized Education - Emina Bužinkić and Nina Čolović6. Navigating the Storm: Coping Strategies of Migrant and Non-Migrant Logistics Workers in Poland - Mateusz Karolak, Könül Jafarova, and Adam Mrozowicki7. Trade Union Activism as a Biographical Resource: Unionized Health Care Workers Facing COVID-19 in Upstate New York - Adam Mrozowicki and Jacek Burski8. Vale do Ribeira, Serra da Bocaina and the Amazon: Community Resilience in Brazil - Marina Fontolan, Aline Hasegawa, Liliana Acero, Carla Aguas, José Maria Trajano, and Leda GitahyConclusions: Global Workers and Entangled Crises - Mateusz Karolak, Adam Mrozowicki, and Mihai Varga
