Care, Labour and Capitalism
A BSA Postgraduate Forum Regional Event
7 July 2026 (10am-5pm BST)
London, UK (venue TBC)
About the Event
This one-day workshop brings together postgraduate researchers exploring care from a labour perspective. The event will offer a space for postgraduate researchers to present their research, receive feedback and foster an emergent research community.
Care work remains undervalued, underpaid and feminised. However, the terrain of the sector is constantly shifting. While the decades-long crunch on publicly funded care continues, capital is developing new strategies to extract profits through the financialisation of the sector. Digital care solutions are promoted as “efficiency gains” to expand accumulation opportunities, while new technologies are rolled out with little regard for workers. The Health and Care Worker visa scheme has exposed hundreds of thousands of migrant care workers to abuse and insecurity by tying their sponsorship to their employer.
With this backdrop, the last ten years has seen historically unprecedented levels of industrial action in care. Care workers are using new and old forms of resistance, through both established unions and the creation of new community associations and groups. The British government is haphazardly planning to introduce a sectoral collective bargaining agreement into the sector for the first time. Empirically grounded research is urgently needed to understand these latest developments in care. Yet at this crucial moment, we must also examine how we theorise care: is it work, or is it affect? And how do these different conceptions shape resistance to its devaluation?
Speakers
- Sara Farris, Professor of Sociology, Goldsmiths, University of London
- Grace Whitfield, Researcher, Centre for Care, University of Sheffield
Call for Papers
We welcome reflections on care work as a site of struggle, including its gendered, racialised dimensions. Participants are invited to submit abstracts on topics including, but not limited to: the political economy of care; the labour process; technology; conceptualisations of care as work or affect; care work as body work; resistance; and migration aspects. The day will include presentations and feedback sessions, a shared lunch, and will conclude with a talk by established academics in the field.
Deadline for abstract submission is the 17 April 2026 and we aim to reply to applicants by mid May. Please submit abstracts online.
Registration
This event is free to attend but registration is required.