Call for papers: Mini-Conference – between dependence and exclusion: labour migration and the contradictions of globalisation

MC08 will organize one virtual session during the virtual conference days (22–24 June 2026). There will be no hybrid sessions during the on-site conference. 

MC08 accepts abstracts of approximately 1,000 words (deadline December 16, 2025). If your abstract is accepted, you will be asked, but not required, to submit a full paper prior to the conference in Bordeaux (1–3 July 2026). MC08 organizers will be in touch about deadlines and specifications. Submissions can be made through the usual process. Details here: https://sase.org/conference-submission-guidelines/ 

MC08 organizers are: 

Olga Gheorghiev (Oslomet, Norway) 
olghe0050@oslomet.no 

Marketa Dolezalova (University of Leeds) 
m.dolezalova@leeds.ac.uk 

Petr Mezihorák (Institute for Sociology of Slovak Academy of Sciences) 
petr.mezihorak@savba.sk 

Call for papers 
Migrant labour lies at the intersection of states, markets, and social reproduction. It sustains global value chains and national welfare systems alike. Globalisation created new migration pathways through expanding production networks, partial border liberalisation, and the rise of recruitment industries. Sending states promoted labour exports, while employers in both advanced and emerging economies grew reliant on foreign workers. Indeed, the reliance on migration has been both a function and an outcome of globalisation, often reflecting former colonial relationships. 

At the same time, globalisation and recent geopolitical developments and conflicts have led to changes in the distribution of economic power and alliances, impacting also the supply chains and the flow of capital, while the governance of migration has become one of the most contested arenas of our time. Across the ‘Global North’, governments face a growing disjuncture: economies depend on migrant workers, yet political discourse and policy regimes increasingly seek to limit or segment their presence. In the UK, Brexit exemplifies how anti-immigration sentiment can lead to dramatic political and economic changes. In the United States, deportation targets coexist with continued employer dependence on (often undocumented) migrant workers. Migrants are linked to the weakening of industrial relations through “social dumping,” even as welfare systems rely on their contributions to survive. States pursue technological fixes to reduce dependency on foreign workers and increase control, yet at the same time expand managed migration programmes further afield to find workers for labour-intensive and low-paid jobs. Race, ethnicity, gender, and class continue to structure opportunity and belonging, reinforcing patterns of inequality. 

Global crises intensify these contradictions. The COVID-19 pandemic revealed how much essential sectors such as healthcare, care, agriculture, and logistics depend on migrant workers, even as these same workers remained excluded from welfare protections. Armed conflicts in Ukraine, Palestine, or Sudan, among others, generate new flows of displacement and reveal both the erosion and the racialisation of humanitarian protection, while refugees are often treated as reservoirs of labour. 

Global migration in its current form, therefore, exemplifies the extractivist nature of the global capitalist economy. These dynamics have, in turn, given rise to new forms of labour resistance that emerge outside traditional frameworks of labour organisation. Migrant workers, often excluded from established organisations, are at the centre of bottom-up strategies that overlap with ecological, feminist, and human rights movements. Campaigns for fair housing, climate justice, gender equality, and racial justice increasingly intersect with migrant struggles, highlighting how precarious labour and precarious lives are bound together. These alliances signal a shift: rather than relying only on established labour institutions, solidarities may emerge across sectors, identities, and borders, creating novel forms of collective power. 

Migrant labour is therefore one of the clearest sites for observing the contradictions of globalisation, the fragility of institutions, social divisions and conflict, and the possibilities of resistance. 

With this mini-conference, we aim to reflect on these contradictions. We welcome proposals that address the following thematic clusters: 

Governance, borders, and the contradictions of globalisation 

• Racialisation and securitisation in managed migration programmes 
• Colonial legacies in the structuring of contemporary migration regimes 
• Migration industries and the role of transnational labour mediation 

Labour, welfare, and extractivism 

• Migration and social reproduction 
• Intersections of migration and welfare regimes 
• Digitalisation, new technologies and their impact on migrant workers 
• Migrant workers and informal work 
• Socially constructed notions of “skills” and “skilled” 

Resistance, solidarity, and new forms of collective power 

• Migrant workers and trade unions 
• Bottom-up forms of collective organisation 
• Intersections of labour and other social movements 
• Sabotage and everyday practices of resistance