[CFP] Conference 2020 – Africa/Social Reproduction Working Groups

2020 IIPPE Annual Conference
Beyond Neoliberalism and Populism: On the Political Economy of our Societies and Economies
September 9-11, 2020, Ferrara, Italy

Africa and Social Reproduction Working Groups: Call for Papers
Work, Production and Social Reproduction in Contemporary Africa

The Africa and Social Reproduction Working Groups invite proposals for individual papers or panels in a joint stream at IIPPE’s 2020 Annual Conference (Ferrara, Italy, 9-11 September). The conference this year focuses on ‘moving beyond neoliberalism and populism’ and on ‘building progressive policies and alliances for our societies and economies’.

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. We welcome papers and panels that focus on qualitative and local patterns of economic and social change, as found in gender, class and other social relations. We particularly welcome papers and panels that relate to 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
• The state and social reproduction
• Activism and progressive social movements and alliances, including:
  • strikes and occupations in today’s mass uprisings, with analysis of production and reproduction
  • alternative economic and social programmes
  • the future of work, social reproduction and production
  • social reproduction beyond capitalism in Africa

Proposals should be submitted online by 15^th March 2020 here. Please tick the Social Reproduction or Africa Working Group when you make the submission and then indicate clearly under the title or abstract tab that you are submitting to this joint call. If you are submitting a panel, all papers need to be submitted individually and the relevant working groups should be informed.Hannah Bargawi (hb19@soas.ac.uk), Hannah Cross (h.cross@westminster.ac.uk), Elisa Greco (elisa.greco@univ-catholille.fr), Sara Stevano (ss129@soas.ac.uk).