Work in Latin America is shaped by a broad spectrum of structural inequalities that are deeply embedded in the region’s past and present. This year’s conference aims to explore the contradictory ways in which legal and racial categories are utilized in order to both enforce and challenge inequalities in different labor relationships. Taking a broad and dynamic view of the relationship between work and the multiple forms of inequality which shape life in Latin America, we invite scholars who study diverse forms of work in the region: sexual, domestic, criminal/underground, coerced, informal and organized labor. By focusing on how the legal and racial dimensions of work in Latin America produce uneven and contradictory opportunities for challenges to hierarchy and exclusion, we seek to contribute to new understandings of different types of inequality in the region. We aim to bring together scholars across the disciplines and welcome a wide variety of approaches to this topic. Themes of particular interest encompass questions of mobility, environment, culture, and national politics. Among the questions we ask are:

• How does workers’ mobility within and across nation-states recast racial categories and expose the tenuous nature of legal structures?
• How do representations of work and workers shape the politics of labor in the region?
• How does the adoption of new forms of labor extraction – or the abandonment of old ones – restructure the relationship between law, race and politics?
• How does the study of organized labor complement a focus on the many other forms of work (informal, marginal, etc.) which shape life in Latin America?

In the spirit of opening constructive dialogue across different perspectives and methodologies, we welcome submissions from all disciplines on any related topic including, but not restricted to: Anthropology – History – Economics – Legal Studies – Literary, Film and Cultural Studies – Political Science – Sociology –Development Studies – Media Studies – Journalism – Regional and Global Studies.

Presentation proposals should be 200 to 300 words in length, either in Spanish, English or Portuguese and should include a cover page with name, academic affiliation and contact information.

Email: stonybrooklacs2016@gmail.com
Deadline for proposals: February 1st, 2016.