Really enjoyed doing this interview with KPFA's Against the Grain! kpfa.org/episode/agai...

“Material Gworls: Consumption and Cosmopolitanism From Jamaica to Japan” by Roxanne Kimberly Dobson is part of the special issue “Racialization and the gig economy” edited by Shreya Subramani&Christien Tompkins @anthropologyofwork.bsky.social anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Check two recent book reviews by SAW (Post 1/2) 1. Proshant Chakraborty's review of The Mechanic and the Luddite: A Ruthless Criticism of Technology and Capitalism, by Jathan Sadowski anthrowork.org/book-reviews...

Please register if you would like to attend: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-labour...

Check out my new book! Matatu Work: Gender, Labor and Mobility in Nairobi. Out Now from James Currey Press. boydellandbrewer.com/978184701397...

Control Science reviewed in the Spectator! Very pleased! spectator.com/article/how-...

Book Launch & Panel Discussion June 09: Unsettling Data: Mapping Labour and Land Against the Representationalist Legal Form Please register to join the event framaforms.org/register-uns...

Two Years ago today Red May continued into June and I got to talk with Michael Hardt about my book, The Double Shift: Spinoza and Marx on the Politics of Work youtu.be/_HShI8j-Y_c?...

#CASPR2026 "There are pockets of interventions for anthropology into tech and labor conversation, such as with policymakers. We can have anthropology in the center", is part of the breakout room on technology within anthropology reflection. "We need to remain hopeful" as an insight!

Check out this new article by Hannah Borenstein @hborenstein.bsky.social , "Finding One's Footing: Hidden Abodes of Production in the Global Running Economy" in the new special issue of #Anthropology of Work Review anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

#JustPublished with #PalgraveMacmillan: 'Agents of Migration: Institutional Embeddedness of Labour Brokerage in Nepal' by Sandhya A.S. Read, download or purchase the e-book/hardcopy/MyCopy here: shorturl.at/aylyf Get 20% off with discount code PALAUT. @hss.springernature.com #Migration #Sociology

For those on the East Coast looking for an online, Marxist, happy hour, tune in! Should he a great panel.

#ASAPeopleFest in Edinburgh on Sunday afternoon, 31/03 3pm - come to our roundtable on the crisis of #highered and #academiccapitalism. With all amazing presenters Cris Shore (co-organiser), Janja Komljenovic, Yvette Taylor, & Ogonna Nnamoko. Free to attend but book your place here lnkd.in/eDjppYTm

Check out Hannah Borenstein's article "Finding One's Footing: Hidden Abodes of Production in the Global Running Economy" in @anthropologyofwork.bsky.social SI "Racialisation and the gig economy" edited by Shreya Subramani&Christien Tompkins. anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

An important new paper!

“I attend to the ways that the charter school system in Post-Katrina New Orleans, by giving families the freedom to choose and apply to any school in the city, has transformed the under-recognized labor of getting to and from school and its attendant logistics into a form of gig work.”

📣 Join us for #CASPR2026 — CASTAC in the Spring! "Labor and Technoscientific Worlds: Historical Encounters and New Directions in the Field" — a roundtable with Kalpana Shankar, David Nemer & Lilly Irani honoring David Hakken. 📅 May 29 | 10:30AM–12:30PM CT 🎟️ Register: caspr2026.eventbrite.com

Link to the paper algorithmichiring.github.io/paper.pdf

OUT NOW: The Sociological Review journal 74:3, featuring 14 new papers💡 Includes a Special Section, 45 Years of Manufacturing Consent, on the legacy of Michael Burawoy’s work. Guest edited by Constantine Manolchev, Ryan Nolan @kirsteen-paton.bsky.social buff.ly/0mk3Tf4 @journals.sagepub.com

Please enjoy this round table discussion celebrating Kathryn Dudley's Conrad M. Arensberg Award from @saw-anthroofwork.bsky.social at the 2025 AAAs. These contributions from Dudley's former students movingly celebrate a varied and impactful career!

Hot off the press please see @cptompkins.bsky.social open access contribution to the Special Issue Racialization and the Gig Economy 'Navigating Choice: School Buses as Racializing Infrastructure in Post-Katrina New Orleans'

From our Special Issue on Racialization and Gig Economy please enjoy 'Finding One's Footing: Hidden Abodes of Production in the Global Running Economy' by @hborenstein.bsky.social

My in-memorium for my mentor, friend and fellow-anthropologist, Joachim Voss published today in #Anthropology News of @americananthro.bsky.social. I am grateful to remembrances from James Fairhead and Johan Pottier, part of the same anthropological lineage that includes me, with Joachim at its lead.

This is a super helpful primer on AI myths. I especially like this response to the hype that workers need to learn AI as a "necessary skill for all jobs": "Generative AI tools deskill workers by reducing their work to closely supervising bad outputs & by decreasing learning on the job."

Today @dairinstitute.bsky.social is releasing the Luddite Lab Resource Hub. The hub hosts case studies, resources, and political education for unions, labor organizations, and workers who want to fight “AI” and automation at work. labor.dair-institute.org

Good China Books Review article on the growing genre of migrant workers' literature. About one-third of China's working population, and nearly two-thirds of migrant workers, work in the gig economy. chinabooksreview.com/2026/05/21/w...

Perplexity’s CEO is just the latest tech leader to tell the public their jobs will be sacrificed on the altar of the glorious AI future. It’s a compelling narrative, but it distracts us from the real impact of AI: not to take the human out of the loop, but to take away their power and cut their pay

How might we think of the role of culture, politics and history in writing with (and about) unions? Today on Platypus, Ambika Tandon, Debopriya Shome and Kaveri Medappa's post is the second in a series on the politics of writing about platform workers' organising. blog.castac.org/2026/01/writ...

It seems to me that companies are spending a lot of money on this technology and firing humans not because they think it will be profitable but in an effort to appear AI-optimized to investors. Colleges are doing it because they enjoy thinking of themselves as startups.

Read the article "What Does AI Do?" by LaborTech member @dmgreene.bsky.social, and the whole special issue of Academe on AI in the Corporate University! www.aaup.org/issue/spring...

3rd post in the series: “Transnational Audiences, Translation Work: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue on Platforms and Labor,” by Anushree Gupta, Debopriya Shome, and Malcolm Katrak blog.castac.org/2026/02/tran...

"Jonas Hassemer's clear-eyed and thought-provoking ethnography traces the complex dynamics of language underlying refugee support work, uncovering the insidious process by which neoliberal subjectivities are crafted under precarious conditions of labor." Order your copy now ⬇️

Very glad the @workersobservatory.org could support @hrw.org @lenasimet.bsky.social with their reporting here. Vital work exploring the global fight for platform worker rights and platform standards. www.hrw.org/feature/2026...

Today on Platypus... Criminalizing commercial surrogacy doesn't eliminate exploitation, it reconfigures it. Ritu Ghosh analyzes how India's 'altruistic' surrogacy law shifts reproductive labor markets underground and heightens risk for surrogate workers. Read the post here: lnkd.in/djjFHgSb

“The union contends UC is misrepresenting who would receive the raises & by how much, …& rising healthcare costs would erode any wage gains. It also says UC has not responded to its requests to open up discussions on how to help members struggling with housing.” www.latimes.com/california/s...

🚨New @hrw.org comes as govts prepare to negotiate 1st global treaty on platform work at @ilo.org. Across 9 countries workers describe low + unpredictable pay, opaque algorithms, safety risks & little/no social security. A thread🧵 www.hrw.org/feature/2026...

Congratulations to Isha Bhallamudi and Anushree Gupta for putting together a series in Platypus, containing 4 posts about gig and platform worker unions in India written by LaborTech members. Series Introduction: blog.castac.org/2025/11/seri...

Dans les années 1970, le collectif féministe international Wages for Housework perce l'impensé du travail domestique. Dialoguant avec la théorie marxiste, nombre de féministes redéfinissent le concept même de valeur, et avec lui les lieux de l'exploitation. www.radiofrance.fr/francecultur...

🚨New: Read Stephen Frenkel's review of Anna-Lena Wolf's #unibern new book #ILRpress that uses an #ethnographic lens to show how tea #plantation #workers, #managers and companies think about justice and transgression in the global supply chain. doi.org/10.1177/0019...

Save 40% with code SPRING26 on #NewBook "The Business of Racism" by Ian Carrillo @iansociologo.bsky.social, which draws from his extensive ethnographic fieldwork in Brazil’s agribusiness sector to show how racial capitalism is promulgated and maintained through politics and business. buff.ly/6ZrVPiH

Today on Platypus, Isha Bhallamudi, Anushree Gupta, and Eesha Kunduri unpack how the gendered nature of platform work affects labour organizing in India and the opportunities for solidarity and forms of care that can emerge. Read to the complete post here: blog.castac.org/2026/04/gend...

will have more of a proper post our about it once I've finished grading finals but today is publication day for my book! www.versobooks.com/products/312...

Yesterday Kier Starmer announced Labour will nationalise British Steel, and save 2700 jobs. Today, the Uni of Nottingham put 2700 staff at risk of redundancy. This is just one university. Across the UK 15,000 higher education jobs need saving. Where is the rescue package for our universities?

A very important article on the Italian strikes for Palestine by Lucia Pradella isj.org.uk/italy-strike...

Still time to enter the SAW @saw-anthroofwork.bsky.social Book prize. The prize will be awarded to a monograph with a publication date of 2024 or later. The deadline for receiving books is June 1.

Good article on human centered design by Ilana Gershon and Caitrin Lynch. cacm.acm.org/opinion/an-a... Worth reading.

We explore how transborder workers, very present in the Polish-German #border region, remain largely invisible for local populations; how different lifeworlds intersect or remain separate; and how #multimodal #methods can make these invisibilities, intersections and disjunctions more tangible.

Irene Vega, sociology and CPIP, is featured in The Atlantic’s “Why Latinos Join ICE.” Vega argues that these Latinos come to embrace the mission of the Border Patrol through the process of socialization during training. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

The Hidden Labor of Ethiopian Runners Long-time friend of the pod @hborenstein.bsky.social joins to discuss the social and political economic dynamics that shape Ethiopian running and practicing the anthropology of sport. open.spotify.com/episode/0gkT...

This FREE article from Current Anthropology applies Britain's "modern slavery" policies to youth involvement in the street economy of heroin and cocaine and considers their status as "slaves" worthy of redemption by the state. https://ow.ly/A0ju50YK96i. @wennergrenorg.bsky.social