BAA Annual Conference 2025: Thursday, July 10 - Saturday, July 12, 2025

Discussions about the future of work have been fuelled by the challenges, problems, and opportunities arising from hyper-globalization, forced and voluntary mobilities, digitization, robotization, AI, as well as climate and ecological transformations. The disruptions and distinctions of the Covid-19 pandemic have further spurred those debates in public discourse, from the conditions of so-called ‘essential workers’ to the integration of hybrid work. International and national institutions such as the United Nations, the OECD, the World Economic Forum, academies of sciences, such as Germany’s Leopoldina, labor unions, political parties and foundations, or consulting firms are grappling with what labor should and will look like in the decades and centuries to come.

At times, these discussions are linked to a critical assessment of the future of capitalism, ideas of degrowth, of societies and economic systems beyond capitalist foundations. Academics and public intellectuals challenge the current division of labor, both between the Global North and South and within specific societies: they critically assess the exploitation of women and children as well as the racialization of labor; they ask about the status and value of different sectors of labor, such as care and welfare work; they assess inequalities such as health problems, shortages in resources such as water, or the ecological and climatic catastrophes that can result from specific forms of labor such as mining, agriculture or deforestation.

Current academic and public discussions are also about new forms of labor and prosperity, about entrepreneurship and innovation, thus rethinking and reconfiguring older utopias such as Charles Handy’s 1980s idea of a New Work. Buzzwords such as co-working, work-life-balance, antiwork, smart work, or flexicurity seem to promise new horizons and new utopian forms in the relationship of labor, individuals, and societies.

With our 2025 annual conference, we want to discuss these themes and problems through three keynote addresses and five panels. In their keynote lectures, Colin Crouch (Warwick University) will explore today’s industrial relations systems, Sherry Lee Linkon (Georgetown University) will engage with Black women’s deindustrial imaginaries, and Katherine Gibson (University of Western Sydney) will speak about truth-telling, diverse labors, and negotiating work futures. The panel sessions seek to explore five topical areas in more depth: (1) Past Ideas on the Future of Work, (2) Feminist Conceptualizations of Labor and the Future of Work, (3) Race and the U.S. Labor Market, (4) Practices, Imaginaries, and Institutions of Worker Organizing, and (5) Art, Activism, and Memorializing.

Photo: Opening of the BAA Conference 2023 ©Bavarian American Academy