[CFP] Conference 2018 – Africa and Social Reproduction Working Groups

IIPPE’s 9th Annual Conference
September 12-14, University of Pula in Croatia

Social Reproduction, Work and Production in Contemporary Africa

The Africa and Social Reproduction Working Groups invite proposals for individual papers or panels in a joint stream. Political economy research in Africa and elsewhere predominantly takes labour absorption or job creation as factors of growth and development with inadequate consideration of the gender and class dynamics of production and reproduction. In ‘emerging’ African countries, it is often assumed that economic transformation necessitates, as a stage of capitalist development, a developmental state that restricts democratic rights of workers. In the more impoverished regions, migration patterns and agrarian economies are sustained in dependent forms, while they also experience shifting gender and class relations as capital is reconfigured and financialised and the labour crisis of neoliberalism deepens.

Interdisciplinary research on social reproduction in Africa has yielded insights into work, production and reproduction that move beyond the growth and productivity data to examine qualitative and local patterns of economic and social change with a gender perspective. They show the inadequacy of linear models of capitalist development and the importance of empirically rich analysis in the historical and theoretical context. In this light, we welcome papers and panels that focus on the following themes:

• Theoretical and methodological questions related to social reproduction including:
  • Marxist theory of social reproduction and class relations in Africa
  • Feminist conceptualisations of social reproduction, including human reproduction, care and the domestic sphere
• Financialised neoliberalism and social reproduction
• Social policy and welfare provision
• Social reproduction, migration and labour mobility
• Work and social reproduction on sectoral, national and regional scales
• Social reproduction and agrarian transformation in Africa
• Modes of production and social reproduction
• The state and social reproduction
• Activism and progressive social movements, including feminist, women’s, and labour movements; alternative economic and social programmes
• The future of work, social reproduction and production
• Social reproduction beyond capitalism in Africa

Papers and panel proposals can be submitted on iippe.org by 15 March 2018, ticking the Social Reproduction and/or Africa Working Groups as part of your submission. Please indicate clearly under the title or abstract tab that you are submitting to this joint call.

Hannah Bargawi
Hannah Cross
Elisa Greco
Sara Stevano