Legal philosopher Alan Wertheimer wrote that “our understanding of coercion underlies... our view of various social practices”. The opposite also holds true: Researching social relations in a given historical context is essential for understanding how coercion underpins the organisation of production, the administration of punishment, and interpersonal relations in conditions of power asymmetry. In turn, social practices can only be understood within processes such as valorisation, im/mobilisation, and punishment that converge to create the historical dimension within which we understand those practices.

Moving on beyond a research agenda that seeks to posit a dichotomy between free and unfree labour or design a spectrum of scalar shades of coercion between the opposite poles of freedom and unfreedom, the WORCK network has attempted to understand how practices and processes of labour coercion can illuminate social practices (and vice versa) at specific historical junctures and in various geographical settings.

This conference brings together scholars conducting empirical research on such practices and processes, as well as on the perspectives of historical actors and how they were entangled in social asymmetries.

Over the past three years, WORCK has attempted to bridge gaps between the specialised but hitherto often separate subfields of labour history, global history, colonial history, and feminist history, creating an academic space that cuts across standard research fields. WORCK enables exchange between scholars working on topics as varied as construction work in ancient civilisations; indentured work and sharecropping in rural societies; chattel slavery and coolie work; debt bondage, convict labour, and military impressment; coercive mechanisms in household work and wage labour; precariousness and modern forms of casualisation.

By studying the persistence and transformation of coercion across gender orders, geographies, and historical eras, WORCK has shifted the focus of labour history. Neither the male breadwinner model nor the free wage labourer or the capitalist mode of production can provide a comprehensive blueprint for this endeavour. Instead, WORCK has striven to attain a deeper understanding of the mechanisms of coercion in all work relations throughout history.

WORCK comprises four working groups: Grammars of Coercion; Sites and Fields of Coercion, (Im)mobilisation of the Workforce, and Intersecting Marginalities. The research undertaken in each of these groups has transformed our understanding of the stories of work and production and their entanglement with violence, expropriation, and marginalisation. For more information, visit https://www.worck.eu.