The second event in the Transforming Economies of Care seminar series focusing on finance took place on Monday 13 December. The slides used by Colin Haslam and Kevin Lucas are available and can be accessed by clicking on their names in this post. Although Kendra Strauss did not use slides, her paper drew upon her recent article:

Strauss, K. (2021). Beyond crisis? Using rent theory to understand the restructuring of publicly funded seniors’ care in British Columbia, Canada. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X20983152.

The next event organised by Distinguished Professor Bev Skeggs and Daisy Baker (Lancaster University), Dr Emma Dowling (University of Vienna) and Dr Amy Horton (University College London) will built on the first two in developing thinking and resources about the political economies of care.

On Monday 24 January 2021, 4-5.30pm (16.00-17.30 UK GMT) CASEI will be hosting the third event on ‘Platform Care’. This features contributions from Karin Schwiter (Assistant Professor in Labour Geography at the University of Zurich), Simon Yuill (artist, writer and software engineer) and Emma Back (founder of Equal Care) with Helen Hester (Professor of Gender, Technology and Cultural Politics at the University of West London) as discussant. The event will be convened virtually on Zoom in conjunction with The Sociological Review.

When people speak of gig economies they usually refer to transport and delivery sectors such as Uber and Deliveroo. Far less attention is given to platforms that advertise care workers. Yet these platforms have developed rapidly and now form a significant “marketplace” for a range of caring services ranging from nannies to dog walkers. They usually operate significant “gig” features such as a competition over rates of pay, no health or safety checks, and reliance on customer ratings and reviews. This session will discuss what happens to care workers when care becomes platformed, and also what happens to social responsibility on platforms with little accountability. Care work has already been subject to destruction of protections and privatisation through subcontracting agencies in which wages and conditions have “raced to the bottom”, a persistent devaluation globally of wages. The experience of the COVID-19 pandemic starkly revealed how the value of care work is rarely recognised, so what happens when it operates in similar ways to other labour that has been gigged and deskilled?

You can register for the seminar through Eventbrite here. Please direct any queries to Dr Michael Lambert (CASEI): m.lambert3@lancaster.ac.uk.

Following the virtual launch of Unfree: Migrant Domestic Work in Arab States (Stanford University Press, 2021) by Professor Rhacel Salazar Parreñas on 25 October 2021, CASEI will be supporting the next event of the Transforming Economies of Care seminar series. This is organised by Distinguished Professor Bev Skeggs and Daisy Baker (Lancaster University), Dr Emma Dowling (University of Vienna) and Dr Amy Horton (University College London).

On Monday 13 December 2021, 4-5.30pm (16.00-17.30 UK BST) CASEI will be hosting the second event on ‘Financing Care: Labour Rights Amid New Models of Investment’. This features contributions from Professor Kendra Strauss (Simon Fraser University), Kevin Lucas (UNISON North West) and Professor Colin Haslam (Queen Mary University of London) with Dr Kate Bayliss (SOAS) as a discussant. The event will be convened virtually on Zoom in conjunction with The Sociological Review.

As care needs rise, models of financial investment in the social care sector are proliferating, and care work, already a major source of employment, is seen as key to future jobs. However, poor pay and conditions are generating exploitation and labour shortages in many places. The COVID-19 pandemic has intensified the challenges facing care staff and services.

What are the prospects for protecting labour rights and improving working conditions? Research has shown that private equity firms and real estate investors have squeezed wages and employment conditions to increase financial returns from care companies. This session will explore these dynamics of financialisation. We will debate the strategies that care workers and their supporters are using to promote labour rights in this context. And we will consider experiments to finance care differently, informed by research on relational business models, wellbeing and social infrastructure.

You can register for the seminar through Eventbrite here. Please direct any queries to Dr Michael Lambert (CASEI): m.lambert3@lancaster.ac.uk.

On Saturday 13 November 2021 from 9am to 5.30pm the Lancaster Black History Group will be hosting a conference entitled ‘Facing the Past and Transforming the Future: Exploring Lancaster’s links to Transatlantic Slavery’. It offers a showcase of research which decolonises the history of the city as well as exposing its deeply embedded social, economic and cultural links with the slave trade. You can register for the event through Lancaster University LibCal here.

The day will feature presentations from community researchers as well as talks from the Director of the British Slave Ownership project at University College London, Professor Catherine Hall, Director of the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool, Dr Richard Benjamin, and an introduction from Professor Alan Rice, the Director of the University of Central Lancashire Research Centre in Migration, Diaspora and Exile (MIDEX).

Further details of the conference outline and programme can be viewed here.

The Centre for Alternatives to Social and Economic Inequalities (CASEI) is delighted to host the launch of Running the Family Firm: How the Monarchy Manages its Image and Our Money (Manchester University Press, 2021) by one its members, Dr Laura Clancy. Dr Clancy completed her PhD here in the Sociology Department at Lancaster University and is now a Lecturer in Media. Her book is based on this body of original work and is an excellent showcase for its world-leading research. The book shows unequivocally that we cannot talk about inequalities in Britain today without talking about the monarchy. It is available in hardback, paperback and as an ebook through the publisher’s website.

Owing to ongoing restrictions due to the Coronavirus pandemic the launch will be hosted virtually via MS Teams on Tuesday 28 September 2021, 4pm-5:30pm UK BST. It will be chaired by the Director of CASEI Distinguished Professor Beverley Skeggs and feature Dr Bruce Bennett (Senior Lecturer in Film Studies, Lancaster University), Professor Helen Wood (Professor of Media and Cultural Studies, Lancaster University), and Dr Sivamohan Valluvan (Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Warwick), as discussants as well as questions and answers with the author.

You can register for the event via Eventbrite here. A video of the launch will be available through our YouTube channel after the event. For any enquiries relating to the event, please contact the organiser Dr Michael Lambert: m.lambert3@lancaster.ac.uk.