Labour Network

This network will run from January 2025 to January 2027. 

The problem of labour has returned to the centre of public debate in recent years. Interest in its past, present, and future grows inside and outside the university. Despite advances across a range of disciplines and fields, new research can feel diffuse and scattered. 

The Labour Network is the first interdisciplinary space to further the study of labour in Oxford. It aims to bridge the gap between social history and political economy whilst exploring ethical and moral questions. It seeks to address the contemporary conceptual, methodological, and empirical issues faced by those who take labour in its variegated forms, locations, and time periods as their object of analysis and area of initiative. Open to all, it seeks to build a hub for collaboration with labour-related organisations, journalists, and policymakers. It starts from Oxford as a centre of labour and uses this history as a platform for opening debate and discussion that connects the local to the national and the global. Above all, it will provide scholars, students, and workers the chance to build community—to meet, listen, exchange, and collaborate in common projects across boundaries.

Network Leads:

Dr Matt Myers, Faculty of History

Dr El Khachab Chihab, Faculty of Anthropology

Professor Rachel Anne Murphy, Oxford School of Global and Area Studies (OSGA)

Dr Daniel Rowe, American Institute Rothermere

Sean Wyer, Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages

If you would like to join the network, please email labournetwork@torch.ox.ac.uk.