How do workers form and shape places and spaces of re/production in today’s capitalism?
This is the central question of the recently published book “Arbeitswelten” (Doutch/Engelhardt/López/Premchander/Wenner, 2026) that introduces perspectives of Labour Geography as a distinct, critical lens within German-speaking academia. The edited volume centres around the everyday lives of workers in contested worlds of labour and offers a holistic, reflexive view of labour as both subject and actor. Thereby this first comprehensive Labour Geography collection in German-speaking academia opens and invites interdisciplinary dialogue.
At the book launch, Anne Engelhardt and Michaela Doutch, two of the editors, first introduce and frame the volume’s overarching contribution, while Benjamin Etzold and the editors themselves spotlight their respective chapters, illustrating the merits (and pitfalls) of Labour Geography as a critical research perspective. On this basis, we invite colleagues at the BCDSS and from institutes at and around the University of Bonn to engage with labour – not passively, but proactively:
- What new insights emerge when we centre workers as spatial subjects and key actors in capitalist landscapes?
- Which power relations, struggles, and strategies come to light?
- What forms of labour agency arise, and what do they imply for debates and discourses on justice and transformation?
- How can we critically engage with labour and capitalist re/production in both historical and contemporary contexts?
The discussion is followed by a reception at which dialogue can be further intensified.
The book launch is organized by the BCDSS in collaboration with the University of Bonn’s Department for South East Asian Studies and bicc – Bonn International Centre for Conflict Studies.