[ICTs-and-Society] Uppsala conference: Plenary session 5 “Work, Class, Gender and,Proletarianization in the Age of Knowledge, the Internet and Communication” (Ursula Huws, Catherine McKercher)

[Christian Fuchs]

Friday, May 4:
09:00-10:30, lecture hall 4 (hörsal 4): Plenary session 5 “Work, Class, 
Gender and Proletarianization in the Age of Knowledge, the Internet and 
Communication” (Ursula Huws, Catherine McKercher)
Chair: Christian Christensen

Plenary session 5 will feature talks by Ursuala Huws and Catherine 
McKercher.
* Ursula Huws (University of Hertfordshire, UK): Virtual Work and the 
Cybertariat in Contemporary Capitalism
* Catherine McKercher (Carleton University, Canada): A Feminist 
Political Economy of Labour and Communication: Precarious Times, 
Precarious Work.

Ursula's and Catherine's talks will bring up questions such as the 
following ones:
What is virtual work? What is its role in the global division of labour? 
How are the boundaries between paid and unpaid work shifting? How does 
proletarianization of virtual work look like? What kind of class is the 
cybertariat? Why have both Feminism and Labour Studies been marginalized 
in Communication Studies? What are gender aspects of precarious labour 
and knowledge work? How does the relation between the workplace and the 
home look today? How are neoliberal working conditions shaping the 
situation for female knowledge workers? How can collective action 
improve the situation of precarious freelance workers?

Pre-conference discussions on these isues are welcome.

URSULA HUWS
University of Hertfordshire, UK
Virtual Work and the Cybertariat in Contemporary Capitalism
ABSTRACT: This presentation will look at the emergence of ‘virtual 
work’, examining the positions it occupies in global value chains, 
including its place in mediating and shift-ing the boundaries between 
paid and unpaid labour at either end of the chain: in pro-duction and in 
consumption as well as in intermediate links. It will also examine the 
interrelationship between the transformation of labour processes, the 
contractual and spatial restructuring of value chains and the changing 
global division of labour. Outlin-ing how a global reserve army of 
information workers has developed in the last quar-ter-century, it will 
conclude by asking whether this can be regarded as a common class, or 
“cybertariat”.

SPEAKER INFO: Ursula Huws is Professor of Labour and Globalisation at 
the University of Hertfordshire Business School. University of 
Hertfordshire Business School and Uni-versity of Hertfordshire Business 
School and Director of Analytica Social and Economic Research. Her main 
research interests are the social impacts of technological change, the 
telemediated relocation of employment and the changing international 
division of labour.

CATHERINE McKERCHER
Carleton University, Canada
A Feminist Political Economy of Labour and Communication: Precarious 
Times, Precarious Work

ABSTRACT: As areas of research within communication studies, both 
feminism and labour have typically been relegated to the margins. This 
talk addresses the value of bringing together feminist and political 
economic ways of thinking about labour in the media industry. In an era 
increasingly characterized by non-standard work arrange-ments and 
precarious labour, it recognizes the need to understand the relationship 
of gender to the workplace and the relationship of the workplace and the 
home. Specifically, I will examine the state of the freelance journalist 
in North America, an occupa-tion that is increasingly seen as “women’s 
work.” A number of conditions have given rise to the precariously 
employed woman journalist, including declining employment in the news 
business, increasing reliance on free content provided by student 
interns, the feminization of the student body in journalism schools, and 
the imposition of freelance contracts that demand more and more rights 
over the freelancer’s work. Many young women journalists, especially 
those with children, see freelance journalism as a way to maintain a 
toehold in the creative class, offering flexibility and market-based pay 
and the chance to work from home. The reality, however, is that 
flexibility means precarity, and market-based pay lags significantly 
behind the pay for full-time work. In recent years, freelancers have 
begun exploring collective action in hopes of improving their social and 
material conditions. This talk will conclude by pointing to some 
promising developments in this area, including initiatives by 
conventional trade unions to organize freelance locals and efforts to 
create new forms of workers organizations for freelanc-ers.

SPEAKER INFO: Catherine McKercher is Professor at the School of 
Journalism and Communication at Carleton University. Her research 
concentrates on labour in the communication industries, including labour 
in journalism.