Researching global labour movements: where do digital methods fit in?

Description

The event is free to attend but spaces are limited and pre-booking is essential. To book your place please click on the Register Online link on this page.

A Digital Methods Development Workshop organised by Cambridge Digital Humanities Network and Researching (with) Social Media Reading Group in collaboration with the Dying for an iPhone project.

Speakers:
Dr Jenny Chan (Contemporary China Studies, University of Oxford)
Dr Anne Alexander (Digital Humanities Network, University of Cambridge)

This workshop explores the place of digital methods in the labour researcher's methodological toolkit, drawing on case studies from research in China and Egypt investigating workers' attempts to improve their working conditions through collective and individual acts of resistance directed at their employers and the state. The first session will present the key findings of the collaborative research project Dying for an iPhone, which investigated the lives of workers producing digital devices for Apple and other high profile buyers at Foxconn factories in China, and open discussion on the place of digital methods within a broader array of ethnographic methods in labour research. The second session will analyse the challenges and opportunities for researchers through access to user-generated content (UGC) created by workers themselves and published on social media platforms, drawing on cases studies from research on the workers' movement in China and Egypt.

For further information about the programme, speakers' bios, and reading list please click here.