Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin: Shifting categories. Unsettling the way we think about work (I)

Workshop 2020/2021 | Working Futures

Shifting categories. Unsettling the way we think about work (I)

05.–06. November 2020

Work gets constantly categorized and classified. It is described as “skilled” or “unskilled”, “formal” or “informal”, “essential” or “non-essential”, “good” or “bad”. Work-related categories are embodied in laws, social norms and practices, formal and informal institutions, thereby shaping the realities of employers and workers. As such, work-related categories are intertwined with questions of power, prestige, and the distribution of material and immaterial benefits. The ongoing process of transformation of work over the three last decades has put into question many established categories and raised new ones. The Corona pandemic, with its large-scale effects on our societies, has emphasized and given a special visibility to these processes of (re)categorization.

During this workshop the members of the Working Futures research network reflect on the various ways in which work is categorized and how these categorizations have been shifting in the last decades. The workshop marks the start of a joint research project that is intended to lead to a publication on the Categorization of Work.

This workshop will take place virtually